To Serve in Heaven
by michael1812
Summary: Eighteen years after the events of PKW Commandant Braca is asked to destroy a secret illegal Peacekeeper weapons facility at the heart of Hynerian space which thrusts him into a war he cannot possibly hope to win. Meanwhile, Vice-Chancellor Mele-On Grayza's daughter Greshyn becomes a pawn in a conspiracy on Nebari Prime which could change the face of the universe forever.
1. Air

_Title: Former Glory  
Rating: R  
Summary: When Commandant Braca is asked to destroy a secret illegal Peacekeeper weapons facility at the heart of Hynerian space he is thrust into a war he cannot possibly hope to win. _  
**  
1**** Air**

Felko didn't report for flight duty today. Greshyn felt unbalanced flying without her. Her substitute was a poor pilot and an even worse flirt. In the end she disabled her comms just to get rid of his pointless chatter and her instructor noticed immediately and punished her for this disobedience, even though she finished her manoeuvre impeccably without instructions. Greshyn thought the old bat jealous, or even worse; she seemed to like it when they disobeyed. The pain was just a formality.

She roamed the Command Carrier in search of her friend, but found her quarters empty. Maybe she had been sent on a secret assignment, but even then why hadn't she told her? They did everything together. Or at least they used to, when Chatto was still around. Now there were just two of them left since Chatto had been assigned to some border outpost as far away as her mother could have sent her. To the most remote and desolate place she could muster, just to separate them. Nothing her mother did was ever without hidden intent. This had been done just to scorn her. To keep them apart. But their friendship would survive this.

"Felko?"

Greshyn quickly swallowed her words when captain Keedo manifested himself in the doorway of Felko's personal quarters. It was almost as if her mother had heard her thoughts. Had she placed a tracking device on her somehow? She wasn't superstitious, but always seemed to think of her mother as this omnipresent all-knowing entity that hovered over every conversation.

The captain was her mother's personal guard. She never went anywhere without him. All two metras of him and not a single part of his body wasn't covered in scars.

Greshyn told him Felko wasn't there, but he wasn't there for Felko. A single grunt was all he needed to communicate that he had come to collect her. Vice-Chancellor Mele-On Grayza had summoned her daughter and her every wish was command. This had been the single constant fact in her life.

"Take me to her."

The brute grabbed her shoulder even though she expressly told him not to.

**

It had been six cycles ago that he had been sent to the Hynerian border. It seemed strange, but Dorak Deluge had become a home to him now, more than he could have possibly imagined. The sight of the lifeless grey giant which the small station orbited had become an anchor around which Commandant Miklo Braca's life turned.

The first day he'd set foot on this station six cycles ago he had been a bitter man. His promotion and re-assignment had been a wholly political move on Vice-Chancellor Grayza's part. He had not been judged by his own merits or skills, but he shouldn't have expected any differently being at the mercy of the woman he'd once scorned. All the feelings had washed away now, replaced with a tranquil serenity of routine duty. But still he felt uneasy.

It had taken him ages to earn the trust of the new crew. A tiny garrison aboard this station. Sometimes he catches himself forgetting their names even now. Not something the Commandant was proud of. He was no fan of long-winded speeches, so he only gave one. He wanted the soldiers under his command to judge him by his actions, not his words. His service record needed no introduction. Trouble is, there was little action here at the Hynerian border.

Dorak Deluge had been one of many stations before the signing of the treaty three cycles ago that forced the others to be dismantled. The new Dominar Rygel XVII was a great politician, he had to admit, helped in no small part by the advice of his grandfather who Braca still remembered well. The old Dominar Rygel XVI. The once fugitive aboard the Leviathan Moya.

The memories made him smile. When he stared out into that barren space at the edge of the Hynerian sector he saw potential, hís potential, and babysitting Hynerians wasn't it. They were always moody and arrogant, always troublesome and frustrating, but in the end the Hynerians posed no threat as long as they didn't interfere with their dealings. They only cared about their own. Their independence. Miklo respected that.

Nights of negotiations had drained Miklo considerably. When he stared out into that barren space at the edge of the Hynerian sector he saw potential, hís potential, and babysitting Hynerians wasn't it. Six cycles he'd bore this burden and he didn't know whether he could handle six more.

The former Commandant of this station had been a great man. Stepping out of his shadow proved to be an almost impossible task for Braca, since the old man was a war hero and a cunning strategist and legendary negotiator. Even now still many of those under his command still preferred Commandant Fgorek over him. Especially lieutenant commander Cyl Arden.

She had been Fgorek's second-in-command and she would never let him forget that. She was a true thorn in his side every microt of every day. Always a sigh hidden under every word. He wanted to think he tamed her after six cycles but he knew that was a lie. She mellowed and finally had come to accept his command, no longer questioning his every order, but whenever she looked at him he could tell she wasn't seeing him. Hell in high heels. Her loyalty would always lie with Fgorek. Maybe even her heart.

Driven with ambition and styled for success. Sometimes she reminded Miklo of himself at that age. Look at him now.

Miklo rubbed his brow.

There was a knock at the door of his office. Miklo rubbed the wrinkles above his old eyes and called for whoever was at the other end to enter. Sleep could wait.

"Sir?"

Six cycles. Vice-Chancellor Grayza had had plenty of time to scheme and plan her next move and yet every transmission from High Command came without a bite. He'd expected worse by now.  
Scorpius had advised him to wait and so he did. He'd play the part, assumed his role, waited for that transmission to come which would put everything in motion. But what if it would never come?

What if she had sent him here to rot? To grow old and tired, here at the edge of Hynerian space? Would that be her final revenge? Maybe in the grand scheme of things he was unimportant.  
And Miklo wondered whether he'd let his ego get the best of him. His promotion had turned him soft.

"Yes, lieutenant, what do you want?"

"Prowler patrol detected a Maurauder on a stealth trajectory towards this station. They are requesting to dock."

"Strange, we haven't got any shipments planned for today," Braca replied. He'd grown used to the distance she put between them and did not object as long as she performed as admirably as she did. He didn't blame Fgorek for putting her in charge as she did. She gets the job done.

"Does it have the proper authorization codes?"

"They specifically requested for you, sir."

Braca turned mid-step. This wasn't right.

"I asked you a question, lieutenant," he said and the lieutenant corrected herself.

"It was an old authorization code, sir, but it checks out."

"Good." He resumed his pace around his desk. "Did they tell you who made the request?"

"Yes, sir. He said his name was Scorpius."

Miklo felt his chest expand with relief. It had been too long since he had seen his mentor.

"I shall welcome him personally," he smiled at her. He had been cooped up inside his office too long anyway. "Tell them Docking Bay 4 is available. And you, lieutenant, will join me there shortly."

"Understood, sir."

"And that is _Admiral _Scorpius to you," he added. "Remember that."

Miklo turned to the drink he had prepared for himself when lieutenant commander Arden walked out his office, but he didn't feel thirsty anymore. Meeting Scorpius again would do him good.  
He hated it when they didn't take him seriously. He had fought too hard to regain his rank to lose it all over again to a bunch of youngsters fresh out of flight training.

**

Vice-Chancellor Mele-On Grayza was just starting to enjoy her morning cream bath when she received the news. It ruined the mood. She stepped from the tub naked and screaming to her underlings for a towel. She was too angry to be reasonable today. She could be vicious when she wanted to.

She returned to her quarters to get properly dressed. Mele-On knew presentation was the key to intimidation. If her children hadn't forced the Council to make her abdicate her position as Grand Chancellor her beauty would've gone unchallenged throughout the galaxy. But that was almost seven cycles ago, when the new Grand Chancellor was sworn in and she took her place at her side. (Now look at her faded beauty...)

Mele-On knew not to underestimate her. The Grand Chancellor was not to know of this transmission.

She stormed on to the Command Deck of the Command Carrier _Dauntless_ like the softest breeze, but there was panic in her heart. While the good captain watched her every move with caution she stopped at the navigator to loom over him like a dark cloud.

"Take me to Graviton Base," she demanded. "Now."

She could not face the Nebari delegate without more information.

When they reached Graviton Base the Prowler scouts reported finding nothing but a giant crater on the system's largest moon.

The captain could no longer keep himself from asking questions. He knew better than to not upset the Nebari, but he forgot not to upset the Vice-Chancellor.

"Why are we here?" he demanded to know.

"That is none of your concern, Captain Daenz," she replied stern.

"It might be," Captain Daenz said. "If I am not mistaken, my brother was stationed here. I know what Graviton Base is, Vice-Chancellor..."

"Let us discuss this in private, Captain, before you forget your place."

Mele-On understood family. They are a risk. A distraction. And she knew this from personal experience.

She explained to the captain that Graviton Base was a secret weapons research facility under the command of Admiral Scorpius, just before she informed him of his reassignment to the Uncharted Territories and his brother's death.

Even if the good captain's brother was still alive somewhere Mele-On would make sure his survival wouldn't last long.

_Scorpius. _This had him written all over it.

He's always been a thorn in her side. He was a threat and he would ruin everything. She had no choice but to take action. She couldn't risk him spoiling months of careful planning.

**

"Braca."

His old leatherclad friend spread his arms wide for a hug. They carefully patted each other's backs.

"How wonderful to see you again."

"My pleasure, sir," Braca replied returning with pride to the formation of senior officers which he had summoned to welcome Admiral Scorpius to the station. But he started to suspect Scorpius had preferred a less formal and more intimate event upon arrival. He felt embarassed for misreading his mentor's intentions.

He proceeded to introduce her to lieutenant commander Arden and Scorpius sized her up with a single look.

"Yes..." he exhaled, while Arden never said a word. Miklo was pleased.

The flight deck had been decorated with banners while all ship maintenance had been put on hold so that only the best and most spotless Prowlers could be showed off to the newly arrived Admiral. Miklo had hoped to impress Scorpius more, but there was only so much he could do with this old station without building a new one in its place.

"This is lieutenant Filch, sergeant Davos and Marnell and flight leaders Jeska and Chatto..."

"Do you have somewhere we can speak in private?" Scorpius interjected politely and Miklo swallowed and told him he would lead him to his office. But they wouldn't go alone. Scorpius had brought a female Interion scientist with him and her son of ten cycles.

"Who are they?" Braca stammered and Scorpius smiled.

"They are my family," he said and Braca quickly and nervously dismissed his senior staff.

Activity aboard the station was quiet for a change. The garrison entertained itself by making daily inventories of the station's constant stream of supplies and weaponry, while every few arns a squad of Prowlers would be sent out to patrol the border and keep an eye out for smugglers, Hynerian traffic and alien phenomenon.

It was this normal routine of the day that did not interest Scorpius. He refused to sit when Braca offered him a chair, instead letting 'his family' sit down in his stead.

Neither did he seem interested in the accomodations Miklo had provided for them. But it did seem that finally old age had caught up with Scorpius. Miklo had never seen him this old and tired. For cycles they'd only ever spoken through transmissions, messages and holograms, but in person Scorpius seemed to have lost his flair, but time hadn't bested him yet.

"This may very well be the last thing I will ever ask of you, my friend," the once spry fellow spoke.

"I have come to you, because I trust you, Braca. You are the only competent officer in this fleet. You understand this, don't you?"

"Of course," Braca spoke flattered. He had come here unannounced with a family seemingly out of nowhere and speaks of trust in hushed tones and careful whispers. Braca knew something had to be wrong. This is not the man he remembered. Never had he been so...desperate.

"But I don't understand. Why are you here?"

A deep pause could only mean a deep thought and in this uncomfortable silence not even the boy dared to make a sound. They were frightened of something. Scorpius afraid? Impossible.

Braca watched him gently kiss his wife's temple to comfort her. How six cycles changed a man...

Scorpius took a data-chip from her breast pocket and placed it on the table between them. The hologram it projected into the thin air displayed a set of co-ordinates on a 3-dimensional map of Hynerian space.

"When High Command ordered the dismantling of all Peacekeeper bases in Hynerian space there was one station left behind. Not Dorak Deluge, but another, right at the heart of Hynerian territory. You may find that supplies to Dorak Dom are being sent from this very station. "

"Dorak Dom? Why wasn't I informed of this?" Braca said foolishly. He was memorizing the details of the hologram in case the information was lost.

"Not even High Command knows of Dorak Dom. Technically, it doesn't even exist and therefore wasn't part of the treaty. I doubt our Hynerian allies would take kindly to deception."

Braca understood.

"There is more," the Interion scientist said. "According to our intelligence reports it's a weapons testing facility. Countless Hynerians used to be kidnapped and brought there to be experimented upon. They were to become the test subjects for various prototypes. It's sickening to even imagine this. Shame on you. Shame on every Peacekeeper!"

But Braca felt the same outrage in his heart. No honourable Peacekeeper should treat their prisoners like that.

"What would you have me do? Break the treaty? March right into Hynerian space with a small armada at my command and kill fellow Sebaceans for doing their jobs?"

Scorpius drew breath. Their eyes met.

"Yes," he said. "If the Hynerians find out it will nullify the alliance and perhaps even lead to war. The Hynerians are a proud and stubborn race. For cycles they have been looking for an excuse to terminate this brittle friendship. You know this. Other races will surely follow when the news of our betrayal spreads. These desperate times require desperate measures. You must destroy it."

"What about High Command?"

"Grayza *is* High Command!"

Braca was baffled that Grayza would risk the entire treaty over a single station. Why was it still there?

The Interion scientist begged him. "Please."

Braca already mentally prepared how he would broker the news to his senior staff. It didn't seem right, but he trusted his old mentor when he told him to tell as few people as possible. Grayza had eyes and ears everywhere.

"Consider it done."

He appeased his mentor's gratitude, but his heart feared the worst. Miklo didn't like the look on Scorpius's face when he thought he wasn't looking.

**

The flight deck had caught fire. Mr Flirt had predictably paid no attention to his flying and had crashed his Prowler in the middle of the docking bay, badly hurting himself in the process without Greshyn ever noticing a thing.

Greshyn watched the medical team rush to the pilot's aid. A fuel tank had ruptured and debris had pierced his leg when it exploded. He begged them not to cut it off.

The Vice Chancellor wasted no time in explaining the situation to the boy. Either you get the prosthesis or you die.

"Do you understand how much your stupidity is costing this State? Cripples are too expensive."

She calmly showed him the patience Greshyn had not while he was screaming and bleeding all over the deck. The surgeons were already choosing which saw to use. The infirmary wasn't too far away. The young pilot started to panic. He turned as pale as a sheet.

"Your time is up."

Grayza's patience had ran out. Mercilessly, she turned to Captain Keedo.

"Kill him."

In his final moments his eyes flitted to Greshyn, silently begging for mercy, as Keedo reached for his weapon in one fluid motion. Four blasts easily penetrated the cold sweat and finally put him out of his misery.

Greshyn did not disagree with his fate. The needs of the state outweighed the needs of the individual. Now he would be spared a life as a cripple. This had been an act of mercy, not cruelty.

He should've paid more attention to his flying and not the contents of his pants.

"Cadet Grayza," the Vice Chancellor seemed pleased.

She now completed ignored the removal of the boy's body, leaving nothing behind but a large red stain on the flight deck.

"You summoned for me, Vice Chancellor?" Greshyn said. It had been her cue to speak.

She was dying to know of Felko's absence from this morning's flight training. This had been what started this nasty chain of events. Greshyn pretended not to care. Their carelessness before had had Chatto sent off to the Hynerian border.

She felt her mother's eyes preening her mentally. Her secret was her shield.

Suddenly her mood changed. "Why haven't you taken her to my personal quarters?"

She reprimanded Captain Keedo. He endured the public humiliation. Everyone did.

"Come, child," her mother told her. "I've been expecting this moment for quite some time. Your achievements have been well noted. I am not the only one that has been keeping their eyes on you."

It was one of the first lessons Greshyn was taught by her mother as a child._ They are always watching._


	2. Water

**2 ****Water**

Food poisoning doesn't become Rygel the XVIth. Finally his stomach pains took the form of sharp stabs in his tiny abdomen, instead of the slow brooding time-bomb that had been nestling inside him all week. Pain granted certainty and something real to defeat.  
Now every bubble of gas that left his body was one of exquisite relief and divine comedy, although for days he lived on the edge of fear that any of them could have been his last.

Oh, it was time for the old man to start paying more attention to his diet, he lamented.  
Still, he wasn't the oldest Hynerian. Or Dominar. At least he didn't get space sick.

"Where is senator Hegomy?" he barked.

The train ride to the inner city council meeting he'd just crashed had been shorter than he'd expected. He didn't think to be crashing the meeting until late in the afternoon. Now they'd be mad at him for interrupting their second lunches. It would take at least twice the amount of usual bribes to get them to agree with him now. Whatever it was he wanted them to agree with.

"Don't get up, don't get up," Rygel spoke to them, one at a time, and lowering his voice slightly with each passing person as they turned their necks. "Do recognise I am not your Dominar."

It surprised him how much at ease he was with saying that, even after so much time.

The council members were lounging in the ceremonial pool until Rygel entered. It is an old saying never to create ripples in the bath of politics. At least not before second dinner.

"I am here for Hegomy!" he announced. "Where is that scoundrel?"

"Here," he croaked.

The Hynerian senator was naked. They all were. It was mandatory to step into the senator's pools without clothing. Rygel knew this. They were all staring at him, waiting for him to make his point. He had enough power and reputation to make all their heads turn to face him. Most of them were full of respect and admiration for him, while others looked to him with disdain. Or fear.

Last time he had entered this place he had been Dominar and oh so young. He'd had the senators swam to their corners in a panic before he'd demand their heads cut off. Oh, those were the days.

And yet there wasn't a drop of blood to be found. Despite its lavishly dressed and bejeweled tiles this palace was a very unlucky place. But Rygel wasn't a man of superstition.

He didn't even bother to hover towards Hegomy. He'd just address him from all the way across the room and call him out on his secrets right in front of the whole bitter pool. He proceeded to ask him about Dorak Dom and have him paddle his way out of the pool with his tail between his legs.

But Rygel's smugness blinded him. For they all knew. They all did. A secret weapons testing facility...A PEACEKEEPER weapons testing facility at the heart of Hynerian space! They knew of its existence and yet they did nothing?

When the treaty was signed the Hynerians knew. They allowed the station to live. For now. While it suited their own purposes. It was the Dominar himself, Rygel's own grandson, who at the behest of his political advisors had his political enemies (or it's better to say, théir political enemies) sent to Dorak Dom for their weapons testing. Their labrats. It was monstrous.

Rygel was outraged. Disgusted. Furious.

"We are not Peacekeepers!" he exclaimed.

The senators used Rygel's own life's story against him. His very survival after 140 cycles of imprisonment and his very rise to power that ultimately bested his cousin Bishaan and reclaimed his throne formed the argument for this cruel treatment of their prisoners. No political prisoner would be allowed to live. They could not risk any vengeance. Any returns.

Without trial or mercy they would be sent to become the playthings of the Peacekeepers.

Bishaan's sons had all been sent to Dorak Dom. Rygel felt a stab of guilt in his heart.

"This is not right." he called this 'necessary' evil. "If the general public were to know of this..."

"They will know whatever the Dominar wishes them to know," senator Hegomy replied. "And if he tells them it is right then they will believe him. If he tells them it is love they will believe him. And if he tells them they are next they will obey."

Rygel spat in the pool and turned his hover-sled away from their folly. He couldn't stand to listen to any of their drivel for another microt. But it was dangerous drivel. Drivel he could no longer ignore.

A hundred and fourty cycles. Is that the time it takes to grow a Hynerian heart?

***

Solar activity garbled the transmission. Greshyn could barely make out shapes as she peered into the white noise. Every few microts her conversation would be interrupted by these annoying flares. And she was right in the middle of a sentence too.

Her eyes wandered across her new compartment. Greshyn had been assigned to escort the Nebari ambassador back to his homeworld after his own personal guard had been killed in a freak meteor accident. She had looked right through her mother's pretense. She'd been selling it to her under the guise of an enormous opportunity to prove her skills, but in truth it was merely an escort mission. It did not come without its risks, however.

She'd heard the Nebari were prone to mindwiping any that cross their paths displaying aggressive traits. Greshyn knew the next few weekens would be a test of her restraint and patience. Waiting for the transmission to return would be her first of many. She wanted to punch her fist right through the screen and it was when she actually started to consider it that the Nebari ambassador appeared on her doorstep. Perfect timing.

His sandals didn't even make a sound as they seemed to hover over the carpets. Everything was so soft and square. Nothing but straight lines and angles and never any windows. From the outside it looked as if all the cities of Nebari Prime were constructed out of pure granity blocks. The buildings were barren and cold. Its squares were void of any pollution. Everyone was always smiling and the skies were always blue.

Greshyn didn't like it here. She was born in the black of space and she would die there. Here, the air smelled of disinfectant.

"How are your accomodations?" the Nebari ambassador asked.

He had a round pleasant face with wrinkles curled around his smile and eyes. Male pattern baldness had cut straight angles into his otherwise impeccable coal black hair that stretched all the way down into thin long sideburns. A touch of blue formed an eternal blush to his cheeks.

Whenever the ambassador smiled his lips became as white as his skin.

"I'm fine, thank you."

Everything about him creeped Greshyn out. For once in her life she was glad to be the daughter of the Vice-Chancellor. It granted her comfort in the safety of knowing they would not dare harm her in any way. But of course it all depended on what the Nebari defined as 'harm'.

"I'm afraid the solar activity will trouble communications at least another day." the ambassador spoke. "But I'm sure you will be on your way to Nebari Prime by then."

"I thought this was Nebari Prime."

"My dear, they are all Nebari Prime. They are infinite."

Greshyn couldn't wait to leave. She smiled back with a nod to the ambassador as his cue to leave. She did so as politely as possible as to not give them any excuse to give her a mental cleansing.

But much like her mother she suspected them of mind-reading as well. It's the way they looked at her that reminded Greshyn of her mother. The way they seemed to look at her and see everything. She felt naked without her helmet.

"Felko, can you hear me?" Greshyn shouted at the screen embedded in the padded wall.

"My assignment will only last another weeken or so. I'm meeting Delegate Tarell tonight. I will contact you again. I promise."

The white noise was poison to her ears, but when she turned it off the silence crept into her brain until all she could hear was the sound of her own breathing.

The door had been locked. They expected hear to sleep and she relented. If they needed her they'd call. She started staring at the white ceiling and didn't care they could be pumping aneasthatic into the room (for all she knew) to calm her down. It worked.

Greshyn had heard the very rain itself on Nebari Prime is laced with mental cleansing drug to keep the population under control.

Peacekeepers could learn a lesson or two from the Nebari, she thought.

Miklo had rushed to find Scorpius as soon as he'd heard the news. The hybrid was lounging in the Commandant's quarters without a worry in the world. He'd known this moment would come since the microt he blew up his own base.

"You've been outlawed," Miklo told him and Scorpius couldn't even try to act surprised.

"Yes..."

He'd never felt so angry with Scorpius in his life. He had this uncanny ability to just throw everything he had worked on for the past twenty cycles away at a moment's notice as if it didn't mean a thing. He had been an Admiral, everything Miklo had hoped to achieve himself one day, and he sacrificed it all on what seemed to be a whim. Miklo hoped with every fibre of his being that there was a bigger plan behind this move or else Scorpius would drag his career down with him.

"If you had just waited..." he mustered to say. "Don't you see what you've done? You're asking me to betray High Command! For what? The destruction of a single base?"

Scorpius shot upright and glared into his eyes.

"There is more to this than meets the eye, Braca. I assure you."

"Then what? Tell me!"

Scorpius slowly backed away, smiling.

"Your crew...they still don't trust you..."

"They do trust me," Miklo said. "It's you they worry about. They respect you, but they don't trust you. They fear you."

"Yes." Scorpius smiled. It amused him that after all these cycles they still found him intimidating. And with good reason.

"Lieutenant Arden seems to think you are covering something up. First you burn down your own research facilities in the Grod'Adar sector and now you're after Dorak Dom? What's so important that you want me to fly deep into Hynerian space to destroy this? I know it isn't ethical objections or Hynerian politics. This is something else, isn't it?"

"How many have you told about this?"

Scorpius was becoming agitated. His eyes sometimes flicked to the door.

"Just my senior staff."

Just ONE, BRACA!" Scorpius suddenly hollered in his Scarran growl. "IT ONLY TAKES ONE to inform Grayza and you will never find Dorak Dom again! The station must be destroyed NOW! And if that requires you to turn renegade, then so be it."

"Do you realize what you are asking of me?"

"I only ask the impeccable."

"My life."

Scorpius moved around the table. His gloved fingers traced the surface of the wood grain while his eyes moved closer. Suddenly he grabbed his uniform and hissed. The Scarran growl burned beneath his every calm word.

"Rank?" He scoffed. "This uniform means nothing. All that matters is the man underneath. Without him, the uniform is just a material. Do you have what it takes? Are you the man I need?"

Miklo was shaking. He'd never been so close to him before. Only in his dreams.

He knew he would probably regret saying it, but said it anyway:

"I'm your man, Scorpius."

He returned to his soldiers; his convictions renewed. Miklo dismissed their objections and presented them a simple choice.

Join him on this secret mission or stay to guard the base. To those that stayed behind he asked them not to betray him to Grayza, hoping they would do the honourable thing. Besides, before that message would reach her they would be deep in Hynerian space and there would be nothing Grayza could do to stop them.

"Dorak Dom will not be heavily armed for it is a science station, but don't underestimate their capabilities. They will probably see us coming in Marauders. Officer Chatto, do you think you can fly the new Huntress model?"

Chatto was always full of misschief. He knew he could count on her.

He'd been eager to get his hands onto the new Huntress himself. From the looks of her, her curves lived up to the hype.

"Seventh generation engine. New tactical abilities," he summarized, feeling her with his eyes. The ship liked it. "We're going to need it."

Almost all of his crew chose to serve. Even lieutenant Arden, despite her usual objections, was the first to step aboard the Huntress to fulfill her duty. He would've thanked them, but let the silence do the talking.

"Do you always get so passionate about ships? Sir?" Chatto asked him and he slipped her a smile.

"Always."

**

She'd been there with her in the infirmary before her departure. She'd seen the wounds herself the brute inflicted on her. And now she's telling her it's no big deal?

Greshyn got mad again. It's almost as if her mother had planned it like this. With her sent away to Nebari Prime there was nothing she could do to help her friend. Felko smiled all through the transmission but she knew it couldn't be real.

"He's marked me as his own now," Felko said, but all Greshyn could see was her black eye. "He told me I'm special."

"Of course you're special! You're a fantastic pilot! Look at what he did to you!"

"It wasn't him. It was my fault. It's okay. I know he can be aggressive at times but if you know how to handle him he can be quite sweet."

"I'll talk to my mother. I'll tell her to do something."

"She's the one that set me up with him."

If her gun hadn't been taken from her she would've shot something by now. Greshyn was furious.  
When finally the transmission ended she let it all out and screamed.

"I could get you something for that," the ambassador said, startling her.

He handed her a glass of water with that same sheepish smile. It looked perfectly normal.

Greshyn threw the cold down her throat and wiped her mouth with her sleeve. She'd deal with Captain Keedo later.

The ambassador suggested showing her around the city to set her mind at ease. Greshyn didn't object. At least that way she could get her gun back.

He introduced her to his daughter of 8 cycles. A sweet little thing. She seemed so proud of her father.

"Father?"

"Do as you're told, dear. Don't speak up. We have visitors."

The child looked to her shoes.

"Is something the matter, child?" he asked Greshyn. "Clearly something's upset you. Dare say, angered you. Pray, tell."

They looked down on a large round square from a high balcony where the wind blew softly past in spurts. The sun was setting. The two moons she'd seen upon arrival here looked much differently in the shade.

"It's my friend," Greshyn explained. "I'm worried about her."

The ambassador sighed. "It's only natural to care for your loved ones and even try to protect them."

He put his hands on his daughter's shoulders and squeezed gently. She enjoyed it.

Greshyn couldn't tell whether what followed was a sermon or a warning. Was there a difference?

"But giving in to our nature only leads to aggression and poor judgment. It is our animal side that we should control. Discipline yourself to love nothing. To care, not. To worry, not. Then you will be at peace before the end."

The girl smiled at her father and he smiled back.

"Do you not agree?"

Greshyn nodded nervously. Honestly, she had no idea what he'd just said. What? She was only nodding to play along. Her eyes were fixated on the square below.

"The Establishment knows what is best for all. We should trust in its vision. Learn from its wisdom. And enlighten the rest of the universe before the end."

"What is that?" Greshyn said and she pointed below. People were running.

"Trouble," the ambassador said and the smile finally faded.

Some of them didn't even bother to hide themselves, running from one shadow to another, as they shed their cloaks. Greshyn couldn't tell from that distance what they were up to. They were planting things in some places while throwing cannisters in seemingly random directions and hollering and growling and sticking their tongues out at anyone who happened to pass by.

Greshyn had never seen anything quite like it.

Explosions pulled the silent square straight into chaos. The ambassador hurried his daughter away and quickly left to call the enforcers before it burned to the ground.

"They will be washed away. We will encompass them," the ambassador reassured her. "They *will* be destroyed."

They set fire to the entire surrounding complex, including Greshyn's temporary accomodations. She kinda liked it until a bubble of fire and smoke burst right into her face.

Covering her face from the ash cloud, she didn't see the masked assailants storm on to the balcony to take her by force. Her struggle was brief.

A bag was pulled over her head and her hands were tied. She was conscious throughout but never said a word, nor did she scream. They would not break her.

**

Knowledge is power. Scorpius strutted the length of the promenade knowing he'd make the perfect bait. Grayza's traitors or spies would have to present themselves or hide in his presence. Either way suited him.

Ten arns had passed since the Huntress had left for her mission. For arns he had been pondering the next stage of his plans, plotting Grayza's next move, for he knew her response would have to be swift.

Then with a twinkle in his eye he caught the Interon scientist's son. A blur of scarlet sprinted towards him, laughing. But there was something else as well. A ball of shiny metal that slipped from the hands of a passing Nebari assassin. The tiniest disturbance would set it off. The boy was running. He didn't see.

Scorpius jumped, his scream drowned out by the deafening blast neither could escape.


	3. Fire

**3 ****Fire**

The station exploded and for a second it seemed like the universe had gained another star. Dorak Dom was no more.

It took them three solar days to track the movements of the cargo ship heading into Hynerian space and follow it without being noticed. Officer Chatto hadn't slept for for the entire duration. In the end she could barely believe Filch's plan actually paid off, since it had taken them ages to find it. It was hidden well among the clouds, exactly where Scorpius had said it would be, masked by the interference of the Goran nebula, but it was the same interference that aided their approach. They took Dorak Dom completely by surprise.

Commandant Braca took his time to disable the stations's primary defences, giving its occupants the time to evacuate, but not enough time to rally a counter-attack. Except he'd been naive.

Before they had even realized it a beam of light coming from the station sliced straight through their hull clipping a wing off the Huntress. It was Chatto's nose dive, a simple reflex, that saved the ship further destruction. Braca did not hesitate after that.

"Activate the targeting computer!" he'd yelled at Jeska and for the first time this man known for his big mouth had nothing to say. War has its way of silencing a man. But this wasn't war, this was barely a skirmish.

Chatto had read about the Battle of Qujaga. She'd read of the destruction of that place by an unspeakable weapon and she knew their commandant had been there fighting at the front, seeing the destruction firsthand in the Scarran war. A part of her had been curious. More of her was terrified.

"Sir, we've lost hull integrity!" Arden cried into her Commandant's ear. Chatto knew he had to ignore it. She would've given anything at that moment to finish this or else this entire mission had been for nothing. She waited for the order. Jeska was ready.

Arden demanded action. In those final moments Commandant Braca had almost turned into a madman, barking orders, and yelling at Arden to shut up. Chatto felt good seeing her being put into her place, but the madman wasn't finished. There was one thing left to do.

"Target that station and fire! Destroy it! Do it!"

Jeska fired. The first volley cut the station's second attempt at a counter-attack short. The beam was vicious. It could slice straight through any ship. The power it required to fuel such a weapon was too astonishing to comprehend. And it was this power that fueled its inevitable destruction.

The light would travel for milennia across space. Far away on distant worlds and distant times men would look up and wonder what really happened. Today, it blinded this small crew.

Chatto could feel her control of the Huntress slipping away. When the shockwave of the explosion finally hit it pulled the ship off course and had it plummet straight into the nebula. The interference clouded their scanners. They did not know what was on the other side. Debris crashed into their hull.

"Navigation is offline! Weapons offline! Engines off-line! We're spinning out of control!" Jeska yelled.

They would soon become debris.

They were already strapped in but now the craft started to increase in speed. The crew reached for their oxygen masks. They'd all been trained for such turbulence. To handle the immense power of these forces that pinned them to their seats.

They would've spun forever through the icy void if it weren't for this water planet. Instead they were headed for a watery tomb. Fire, then water. And no-one would ever know they had ever been there. Just a small crater on a small dwarf planet to mark their tombstone.

And there was so much Chatto had been wanting to do with her short life.

**

His drop in consciousness had been short enough to disorient him. The ocean burst through every seem and crack of the burst ship. The cold rose to his feet and started to submerge him but he couldn't move. He ripped off his now useless mask but couldn't unengage the straps that kept him locked in his command chair. Miklo cursed its inventor.

He yelled at his subordinates to escape while they still could.

"Go!" he told them. "Go!"

He wrestled with his chair but it wouldn't let him go just yet. He had fired upon another Peacekeeper for the first time in many cycles. Perhaps this was his punishment. He'd turned his back on High Command and had dragged the others down with him.

The ship was sinking. The water was rising. Arden found him when the waves encompassed his neck. He told her to leave him just before he succumbed to the cold. She dove after him and underwater they both held their breath. She simply looked into his eyes as her blonde hair drifted around her. All he could hear was the creaking of bulkheads being crushed under the weight of the water and then a knife cutting through the straps of his chair. Her face was only a few denches away from his. He remained absolutely still until the strap snapped in two and they both swam to the hatch of the ship even when their lungs could no longer bear the pain.

They gasped for life in the new light of the sun. The explosion lit up the sky turning night into day.

"Welcome back, Commandant!" they shouted at him. Feelings of joy and relief overwhelmed them even while they were lost drifting at sea with nothing to hold on to but a few floating remains of the Huntress. And they'd never even had a chance to get to know her

"Look! Over there!"

Jeska spotted an island not far from where they were. It would take all their strength just to paddle to its sandy shores. If the currents would let them.

**

"What. Happened?" Grayza was in no mood for incompetence today. Her underlings knew to avoid her when she started stressing every word.

It seemed like such a slow day until this sudden mood swing. Captain Daenz was days away from his reassignment, but part of him was still thinking Grayza hadn't been serious. He hoped to avoid his fate by obeying her whims to the letter.

"Thank you, Captain," she articulated when he handed her the new reports. A final transmission had been sent from Dorak Dom before its destruction: its recorded final moments sent directly to her Command Carrier. There was a voice she had heard before.

"Surrender this station! You have ten microts to comply! "

She would've recognised it anywhere. _Braca._ Scorpius had employed his dog to do his dirty work. She should've known.

The transmission wasn't enough evidence to condemn Miklo Braca. It was too garbled to make out by anyone but Grayza herself. But somehow she would make him pay for what he's done.

At least she'd managed to get rid of Scorpius once and for all.

"Captain, there's an incoming transmission. They say it's urgent."

Before Captain Daentz could open his mouth Grayza overruled him. He stepped aside.

"Has the caller identified himself? Tell me."

All of the officers on the command deck knew not to look directly into her eyes.

"It's the Nebari, ma'am."

Daentz wished he didn't know how much this pained the Vice-Chancellor to hear. The news had only reached them a moment ago. How could the Nebari have known about the loss of Dorak Dom so quickly?

"I will talk with them in my personal quarters, lieutenant," Grayza spoke amiably. She knew how to handle delicate matters.

Things couldn't have been worse for her. Her secret weapons facilities destroyed. The Nebari breathing down her neck. Her daughter kidnapped by the Nebari Resistance.

Captain Daentz wouldn't mind a reassignment right about now, before events would entangle them all before taking another turn for the worse.

She did not scream or fight when the grating fabric was pulled over her face. She accepted her destination. Her perfect hearing substituted for her perfect sight. She bided her time and listened to her captor's desperate commands. Someone was angrily grumbling something about access codes and there was a whisper in the dark that said the ambassador had gotten away. The plan had failed.

The acoustics suggested to her they were in some kind of cave or tunnel. Every step they'd carried her they'd taken her further down, but she couldn't tell where. The air was thick with moisture, but freezing. A shiver went down her spine.

When they finally found their footing and shoved Greshyn to her knees she was ready for them, but she hadn't expected another captive.

"You brought me a Peacekeeper?" he said, like a man complaining about getting the wrong order. His face was bruised by beatings. His nose was definitely broken. She could practically taste the blood in her own mouth.

When her eyes finally adjusted to the pain and the dark she recognised Delegate Tarell on his knees beside her trapped in the same situation. Her first instincts had been to call out to him, but she'd trained herself to keep her emotions in check. She looked up to her captors and looked them in the eyes.

"Officer Greshyn Grayza," she would never stop telling them. "Special Peacekeeper Commando. Aureius Company. Magnetar Regiment."

A Nebari man slapped her in the face.

"You will speak when you are spoken to," he told her. "We should keep moving. We cannot take any chances with the Establishment. If they find a way down here this is the first place they will search."

The men agreed. Greshyn felt a rough hand seize the collor of her leather vest and drag her to her feet. From this point on she would have to carry her own weight.

**

The change that had come about the Vice-Chancellor in just ten microts was remarkable. Captain Daentz had never seen his boss so desperate before.

"Take us out of orbit, Captain. Now."

"Very well." Daentz obeyed instantly, fearing her wrath. She reminded him of a Blood Tracker caught on a scent.

Her calculated calm had vanished. Daentz expected her to head straight into Hynerian space, but instead, much to his surprise, she'd ordered a direct heading towards Nebari Prime. That must've been one intense conversation.

"Vice-Chancellor." He dared to approach her, but he knew wisely not to test a creature already so far on the edge. She was oozing tension. "If I may be so bold..."

"If I may remind you of the last time you were bold, Captain, it did not end well for you."

For the first time, Captain Daentz did not feel the sting of her threats. You cannot kill a dead man.

"Is there any news on your daughter, Greshyn? She'd always been such a superb student..."

"No."

Captain Daentz understood when he was being told off.

"Could you at least tell me more about the situation we might be facing? I don't want to put this crew in any unnecessary danger."

"Return to your post, Captain. I will call you as soon as you're needed."

The rest of the command crew watched as their captain bore his humiliation with dignity, while the Command Carrier sped towards the Nebari sector.

**

The Vice-Chancellor realized of course why they'd requested her daughter's reassignment. It was not mere chance. It was leverage.

She'd prepared for her conversation with the Nebari by dimming the lights and rehearsing her responses in her mind, but it only made her more tense. She could never tolerate failure, especially her own.

The same smiling face had peered at her through the window of this small screen, making the same threats. She wasted no breath on pointless lies or even obvious truths.

She refused to lose this battle. Scorpius would not beat her, not even in death.

She'd ordered her Captain Keedo to personally ensure his corpse was genuine. Even if there was only his littlest finger left of him after the explosion, she wouldn't believe it till she'd seen it with her own eyes.

Despite their differences she'd sometimes appreciated his council, even if it were given in anger or contempt. Never trust the Nebari, and she never did. But that's the thing about necessary evils. They are necessary.

She caught her own reflection in the high street windows. She didn't like what she saw. A Nebari girl with a crumpled piece of paper in her fist. At least, she saw a girl. Everyone else saw a woman. Old is boring. Old is weak.

She kept her collar up against the rain and kept her head down. She knew how to make just enough eyecontact to keep people from suspecting. She never thought it mattered before, but she wasn't as nimble as she used to be. Oh, she hated getting old. Everyone kept expecting her to do things. She didn't care.

There was only one thing the woman with the crumpled paper in her hand cared about.

"Relax," she told her escort. He was young and nervous, but he had these beautiful dark eyes.

The enforcers marched in pairs from door to door to question all inhabitants and test their resolve to the greater good. When they passed an open doorway they looked past the soldier's silhouette and saw a woman crying. They kept walking.

A booming voice seemed to emerge from the very granite walls themselves, and was just as tasteless and bland. It informed the populace of the curfew that had been set in place. Two more arns until the streets had to be cleared and everyone left standing would spend the night in a holding cell.

_"Return to your homes..."_

"Pretend like you own the place," she told him, talking over the announcer. "Fear is a dead give-away. They're looking for terrorists. We're not terrorists."

"It's not that easy," Dark Eyes told her.

The woman sighed. "It never is."

**

Drinks came in small doses on Nebari Prime, much like news. Information had its way of seeping through the fault lines, however, and truths were forced to stay secret.

Initial reports of the incident in the Hynerian sector told of a mere freighter collision carrying volatile chemicals that proved to be a dangerous mix, but everyone could tell it was a lie. Nebari were the experts at lying.

Finally the intelligence reports came in and exposed the blemish the Peacekeepers had left in Hynerian space.

Dark Eyes and the woman walked in on a group of Nebari men in white robes laughing at the embarrasment and expense of the Peacekeeper Realm. She preferred to laugh at them. Their entire existence was a joke.

Dark Eyes caught the live broadcast of the day in which an announcer mocked the failures of their cold rivals, while the woman found a door to the back of the moody bar.

There was a man in a straw hat sleeping in a chair in the corner with his two chins firmly resting on his chest. Next to him stood a thin wax candle burning atop a small table.

The woman unlocked the crumpled piece of paper from her grip and held it slightly into the path of the flame. The corner caught fire and yellow turned black and finally into ash. The smoke formed an unhealthy purple colour which smelled of flowers. She waved it across the sleeping man's face. Just a whiff of it and the gatekeeper shot upright. When he saw he had company he wiped his mouth and got up to open the door.

Dark Eyes caught up just in time to see the entrance to a damp and rocky cellar beneath the bar. Another gatekeeper, this time armed with more than just a straw hat, pushed a light into their eyes to check pupil dilation and reaction time. A further blood test would prove they were clean. They could enter.

"Chiana!" She received a warm welcome, despite the ever-lasting cold in these parts of the caverns. "I'm so glad to see you've survived. What did you find out?"

This chubby man that put his hearty arms around her was the closest thing to family she had left. Tollis had saved Nerri's life more than once back when they were still robbing freighters.

"You're not going to like it," she said.

"Try me."

"It's serious," Dark Eyes confirmed.

"Told you you're not going to like it."

Dark Eyes popped one eyeball out of its socket and handed it over. It was Dark Eye now, but his friends called him Gamma. The eyeball was artificial. A recording device made to look like an eye. Tollis wiped the goo on his sleeves before complimenting him on his great work.

"The Establishment is planning something big," Gamma said. His nerves got the best of him. "Any day now it's going to happen. We need to act now and find out what they're up to. Every day we wait is another day we've lost to the Establishment!"

"Settle down, son..." Tollis told him.

"I'm sorry," Gamma said. "I'm still getting used to all these new emotions."

"Don't worry." Tollis raised an eyebrow, smiled and pointed at Chiana. "You'll learn from the best."

But she was already gone, distracted by some shiny object in the next chamber. Tollis was already planning to keep moving and collapse this side of the tunnels just to make sure Chiana wouldn't be followed.

"Who are these people?" she asked when she stumbled upon the prisoners.

"Peacekeepers," Tollis explained across the room. "Ambassador Mornin's pets."

"Are you going to kill them?" Chiana asked.

"Do you want me to?"

Down below on the floor of the next cavern sat two hunched figures tied down in lonely and rugged isolation among the slippery rocks, listening to the trickling flow of wild water running through the cracks in the walls. The water ultimately filled a large underground lake hidden from the civilization above. A voice echoed across its cold surface.

"Officer Greshyn Grayza. Special Peacekeeper Commando. Aureius Company. Magnetar Regiment..."


	4. Metal

After three solar days spent marooned on that forsaken island Miklo had been the only one still feeling the high of the battle, despite the reasonable objections he should have against it. A part of him still urged he should've gone down with his ship as it sank into the ocean, while the rest of him celebrated life!

But he wouldn't let himself forget that someone was still going to have to pay the price.

But what he briefly considered paradise was a prison to his crew. The heat had become unbearable during the hottest parts of the day, forcing them to retreat into the waves of the ocean at times just to stave off any symptoms of heat delirium. The shade was scarce and the sands burned their feet.

What had he sentenced them to? He couldn't help but blame himself, as they did, for exiling them here in this desolate place. Their emergency rations were running out and they could barely filter enough ocean water to sustain all seven of them.

On the second day they tried fishing but found the ocean life preferred to eat rather than to be eaten. Something slippery with gills dug its sharp teeth into Filch's leg. It took all the bandages they had to stop it from bleeding. The salt still stung the wound.

"There!" Arden cried out.

Something solid moved across the blue sunny skies. They were lucky it wasn't a Hynerian Cruiser.

The small craft hovered over the island and extended three legs as landing gear. The ship looked like it had been patched up plenty of times, covered in the parts of various different crafts and technologies just to keep it spacebound. When the engines were cut off just a few metras above the soil the craft crashed down with a loud metallic clanging. They hoped it wouldn't sink and get itself stuck in the soil.

"Stay back," Miklo told his crew. "I will do the talking."

"You know this ship?" Arden asked him.

"I know its captain. The most foul-mouthed and obnoxious woman, if I can even call her that, I've ever laid my eyes on. But she's crafty, I can tell you that. Dón't underestimate her. And dón't encourage her. And please don't tell her anything personal about me..."

The outer doors slowly opened with a hissing sound as black smoke crept from the crevices and a figure in full leather armour, wearing a giant helmet resembling a monstrous skull and big black boots, stomped a manly way across the wing of the ship.

When the square-jawed Zenethan pirate lifted her vizor she was grinning, while chewing on some gum. Zenethan females could look just as male as Sebacean men. Miklo hadn't been the first to have made that mistake. She had a mark burned into her forehead and a black tattoo darkened the right half of her face, across her eye.

"My oh my, captain Braca. Is this what you get up to nowadays?" Staanz said. "Castaways? Oh, you clearly need my help. I should never have left you."

Miklo couldn't believe this was happening to him. Again.

"Quite the mess you've made up there. There's an entire fleet looking for you. Luckily, you're not the only one that appreciates stealth. I've got the stealthiest ship in this entire sector."

A loud puff of smoke emerged from the doorway and startled Jeska.

"Staanz!" Miklo cried out, but Arden smiled and held him back.

"He's a Commandant now, actually," she said. "Can your ship hold the seven of us?"

Staanz liked her.

"'Course it can! I'm no barbarian, although the guy that gave me this helmet was. Get in. I can never say 'no' to a pretty face."

While the crew clambered on board Staanz continued telling her story to anyone close enough to hear her.

"He was this great big massive guy with pecs of steel and arms that could bend the biggest bulkhead! You really should've seen him. He was terrifying. You would've liked him."

**

Space suddenly felt a lot colder. Dorak Deluge had become the stage for a crazy captain's rampage. He marched down to the station's morgue with a mission. There were two corpses there whose identities he needed to verify. The Interion scientist cowered before his impatience. She tried to keep her strength but with every step down into the sterile chambers of sickbay she felt it fade away.

He didn't like it when she stared at his scars. He had long hair in grizzled patches interrupted by metal plates where he'd once been torn to shreds. His face had a dent in it and the veins in the whites of his eyeball were always bloodred. Captain Keedo was known by reputation to be a mad dog. He never smiled.

"Is it him?" he demanded to know as he pressed Organa's face towards the cold metal drawer. The corpses had been scheduled to be cremated in an arn, but there was little left that hadn't been burned by the explosion already.

When the doctor unzipped the bag that contained his bodyparts Organa flinched in horror. When she recognised the remains she quickly turned away. She saw the cufflinks. The small boyish fingers...

"That's not him," she said, struggling for breath. Her eyes were pouring. The only thing that kept her standing was the captain's wrath. She almost couldn't bear to say it. "It's my son."

The doctor quickly zipped it up but when he did he got his plastic glove caught in the zipper. He struggled to get it loose until the captain glared at him to just take the glove off and nervously he picked up another pair, before closing the drawer. Glove and all.

"Is this him?" the doctor asked and the captain grabbed her arm and forced her to watch as he unzipped the bag. She winced.

The leather body-armour had been twisted and torn into an unnatural shape. His jaw hung loosely from its hinges so that the skull's expression seemed to be stuck in an eternal howl. No longer sickly pale, his face had been charred, but for his eyes that stared out into nothingness. There was a hole in his skull where the doctor had removed the coolant rod equipment that had burnt to a crisp.

"Scorpius is dead," Organa told Keedo. "Is that what you wanted to hear? He's DEAD!"

The captain cut off a finger from his corpse just to be sure. When he compared the DNA to the sample they had stored in the High Command archives it proved to be a match. Keedo laughed. The hybrid had been undone.

He grabbed Organa by the neck just to stare into her eyes.

"Thank you," he said, almost sincerely. "I'm sorry for your loss."

He let her go. Organa didn't know what to think. She just wanted to curl up on the floor and die with the rest of her family. The doctor held her hand.

**

The mantra she had repeated for arns on end now started to drain her, but it seemed to be the only thing that kept her sane. She didn't know whether it was day or night or how long she had spent underground in these caverns. All she knew was the times when they would collect her for interrogation, when they were done with Tarell. She was determined to stand her ground.

Before they'd even asked her any question this time she already started her mantra:

"Officer Greshyn Grayza..."

A Nebari man slapped her in the face. He had grown sick of it.

"You will speak when you are spoken to," he told her.

In turn, the Nebari man was slapped much harder. When Greshyn looked up she saw the man clutching his bruised face and ducking the glare of a girl half his size.

"D'you like that, huh?" she asked him. "Want me to do it again?"

The man shook his head.

"No? Then don't you ever touch her again. Not...not without proper cause, anyway. Shame on you!"

When she stepped into the light Greshyn saw that it wasn't a girl but a woman. She was older than she looked. Scarier. She turned to face her.

"Don't think this saved your life." Grim, but sagely advice. Greshyn knew this wasn't mercy. It was something she'd never seen before.

The woman kept wiping her wild hair out of her dark eyes.

"Officer Greshyn Grayza," Greshyn repeated. "Special Peacekeeper Commando. Aureius Company..."

"You're funny," the woman said. "Now I want to slap you myself."

"...Magnetar Regiment."

The woman smiled. Greshyn would never forget that.

**

"This is my first mate Cran!" Staanz exclaimed as he put his arm around a grinning pirate who was missing every odd numbered tooth from his wretched smile.

It had taken him arns just to get the ship up in the air again and it required a lot of manpower. Every crewmate was recruited to keep Staanz's baby from falling apart.

The ship shook heavily as they pushed through the stratoshere with nothing to hang on to and the possibility of an early death crossed everyone's mind at least twice before everything suddenly became weightless. Their precious oxygen was also being sucked out into the vacuum of space through tiny tiny cracks.

"I can fix this!" Staanz boasted. "That's my motto! Give me a spanner and I can work miracles!"

"She can though," Cran winked at Miklo and he couldn't stop wondering about this first mate's gender.

He may have been Staanz's first mate, but he (or she) was also her only mate. When Miklo started to think it through he may have realized he had been thinking in wrong terms. _Mates._

"Everybody keep shovelling more fuel into the engine!" Staanz said when artificial gravity kicked in. "We'll outrun those Hynerian cruisers! You'll see!"

Everything rumbled and everything felt hot to the touch in this dank and small engine room. It filled up with smoke. No-one knew how this thing was still flying and yet Miklo hadn't been able to catch her in six cycles. Maybe she had some tricks up her sleeves after all.

"Enjoying yourself, Commandant?" Arden asked when she caught him taking a break from the heavy lifting. They were standing knee deep in hot gravel which they were supposed to shovel into Staanz's furnaces until the flames turned blue. It wasn't made with Sebaceans in mind.

"I didn't think you had a sense of humour, lieutenant," he told her over the rumbling sounds of the engine beneath their feet.

"There are a lot of things you don't know about me," she replied. "And I hide it well."

"Is that why you have been tormenting me all this time?"

"Tormenting you?" She couldn't believe he just said that. He didn't trust her. "Someone has to warn you of the consequences of your decisions! Someone has to point out the risks, the costs, the dangers! There are two sides to every coin and sometimes I don't think you see that."

"And you do?"

"I see more than you know, Commandant." She smiled.

When people started passing out Staanz realized there had to be a change of plans. She invited them all into the 'command cockpit' and put her cooling fans to maximum while Carn kept shovelling dirt.

"I've had to make an adjustment to our course, if you don't mind," Staanz said as she fiddled with the dingy controls of his ship. The chair creaked underneath her weight.

"The things I hear about the Nebari sector these days. I don't trust it."

"What'd you mean?" Miklo asked.

"Well, strange suspicious activity along the Hynerian border, for one. There's talk of troop movements and those giant Emissaries give me the creeps."

"Emissaries?"

"You know, those Nebari warships? They're not even warships. They're just massive...things. I'm not eloquent, okay? They're big! And dangerous! Very dangerous! You don't want to mess with the Nebari."

"We're not going to the Nebari," Arden said. "We're going to Dorak Deluge."

"Another station you want to blow up?" Staanz asked.

"It's my station!" Miklo urged.

"Then I have to go there more often! It sounds quite lovely."

"Please don't."

**

When they arrived back at the station the first thing Miklo did was order Staanz and Cran's arrest. None of the others objected. They were smugglers. It just happened to be that this time it had been them that were smuggled out of the Hynerian system.

"You can't do this!" Staanz cried out. "We just saved your life!"

Miklo was too tired to care. He noticed the heavily scarred man sitting in the pilot's bar just before the messenger came carrying the news. He had seen the destruction from outside the station but he never expected it to be...this. The two words seemed so implausible and too ludacrous to utter.

"He's dead."

**

When the Hynerian pressed his tiny and sharp teeth into the flesh of the grape juice squirted across the front of Miklo's leather uniform. The grumbling apology that followed was quite a mouthful.

And he'd even selected this uniform with such great care. The shower this morning had washed all of the dirt away. Arns he'd spent in front of the bathroom mirror to leave not even the tiniest hair unshaven, uncut. When he put down the knife he looked out at Dorak Deluge with new eyes. A new man.

"I'm sorry to hear about Scorpius," Rygel said. "I'm here to offer my condolences."

It was the strangest stroll down memory lane for Braca to see the old Dominar before him again, alas no longer as the fugitive he'd spent cycles chasing around the Uncharted Territories. They'd only ever spoken briefly after the accession of his grandson as new leader of the Hynerian Empire

"I honestly didn't expect to see you here. I was under the impression you hated him."

"I did. But he still owed me money at Darjotta," Rygel laughed. "We played a game every four weekens. He never cheated. Not once."

He sighed when his eyes wandered to the destroyed part of the station.

"I'll miss him."

There was now a hole in the promenade, blackened and torn bulkheads twisted into different ends. Braca recognised the work of his station's engineers in the attempt to seal the ruptured outer wall, but there were now cracks on a microscopic level no man could fix.

Rygel resumed to eat grapes.

"I told myself I would cut down on snacks in between meals," he said, just before he bit down on another. Braca quickly dodged the next explosion of juice. "But I guess I just love food too much. I lack discipline!"

The Hynerian mocked himself.

"But I wouldn't laugh at my misfortunes too much, if I were you. Hynerian Intelligence knows all about your predicament. In fact, they know everything."

"Like what, exactly?"

"Ha!"

The details of Hynerian politics bored him. Rygel explained the poor attempt to cover the incident up as a freighter collision, but this never caught on. Instead, they now blamed Dorak Dom on the Peacekeepers.  
Relations with the Hynerians had always been tense and this had just given them a pathetic excuse at voicing their dissent, but Miklo knew it would never go anywhere. They needed the Peacekeepers. This had been the case for several centuries, ever since the Charrid invasion.

"Peacekeeper High Command won't let you get away with this," Rygel told him. " Even I know this. Grayza can harbour a grudge like no other."

Still Miklo couldn't seem to care. His mind was stuck in some unrealized reality where he had gone down with his ship. Now he just felt empty inside. He put the careers and lives of his fellow Peacekeepers in jeopardy because his loyalties were divided. They wouldn't hear the last of this.  
This had all been his fault. If he had died in the Huntress that day he would've spared them this aftermath. The Peacekeeper Vice-Chancellor and the Hynerian Dominar would've had their scapegoat and all would've been well.

Why did Scorpius want this to happen so badly? What did he stand to gain from this destruction? What had been his plan? Had it come to fruition with the destruction of Dorak Dom or had this just been the beginning of something bigger, prematurely ended by Scorpius's death?

Miklo had to know. He abandoned Rygel mid-sentence, but the former Dominar would have none of this. He rushed straight after him. He didn't want to miss this.

Rygel could always tell when to call or when to fold his hand at _Darjotta_. He was definitely going to call this time, for this development could prove to be interesting. More interesting than all the talks with all the Hynerian senators in the universe. He'd missed this sense of adventure.

The grapes fell to the floor in his flight.

**

"You're a Peacekeeper, right? What does that stand for? Huh?"

Chiana found it hard to illicit a response from this one, but she'd get through to her somehow. She looked nice, she thought, for a Sebacean, prettier than most, and she was adamant that no-one should ruin that. She doesn't deserve that. Yet.

She dabbed Greshyn's face with a piece of cloth, rich with absorbed ointment, gently stinging her torn lip. Greshyn wouldn't stop touching it with the tip of her tongue.

"Are you a soldier or a tech?"

"Officer Greshyn Grayza. Special Peacekeeper Commando. Aureius Company. Magnetar Regiment."

"Soldier it is then," Chiana said. "Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think you know anything. According to the arrival logs you're just a temporarily assigned pilot. You're not with the Establishment. You're just here to do a job and you've performed it admirably, but I think it's time to go home now. You're no use to us."

Chiana could tell she was trying to determine whether this meant they would kill her.

"So where're you gonna go? Where is your home, Officer Greshyn Grayza? A Command Carrier? A Gammak Base?"

She still wouldn't say anything. Chiana didn't mind.

"And while you return to your own little world we'll still be here. Fighting."

"Little?" Greshyn laughed. "I'm part of something so much bigger. That's what being a Peacekeeper stands for."

"Oh, is it?"

"Yes, but I doubt you'll understand that."

Both saw each other as overconfident and naive.

"Why? Because I'm just a stupid rebel?" Chiana spat back. "Some peasant on some backwater planet? This is Nebari Prime. You don't know where you are. You don't know anything!"

Greshyn smiled.

"I know that your fight is pointless," she added. Chiana got her to talk, so why stop now?

"You're all going to die if you don't surrender now. Just give up. Just let them come. Live in their world so you don't die in yours. By continuing this you're only dragging more innocent lives down with you. It's people like you that get people killed."

"You...you think I want to do this?"

A shiver crawled down her back. In the adjacent tunnel Tollis was overseeing the Cell's move off-world. Supplies were being packed. Weapons were being hidden. False identities were provided. Gamma was polishing his fake eye.

"No, I don't. The world is frelled. Do you know how many times I thought about giving up? But what kind of a way to live is that? I'd rather die. All I care about is for my people to be free again. That's what my brother wanted. That's what I want.."

The death of her brother brought back so many feelings surging through her body. Just the mention of his name would expose a nerve and she didn't want to find out what would happen if she let herself get lost in those feelings.

"I've lost everything. All I had was my brother and now he's gone. But I forgot who I was talking to. You've never had anything in your life. Nothing you've ever held even belonged to you. It's always belonged to someone else. Even your life is property of the state. You'll live and die for the Peacekeepers. That's all been planned from the start. You probably even think that's a comfort. Everything is set for you. You don't have to worry. You don't even have to think! You just obey..."

Chiana wiped away a tear, shaking her head at the absurdity of it all. She didn't even expect Greshyn to listen. They never did. At least she didn't have that stupid smile on her face like all the Nebari had. That blissful empty gaze that only true believers could have.

"You're wrong, you know that? It's people like you that get people killed. That kill people. So you can _keep _your...whatever you call _peace_. You may have given up, but I haven't."

Chiana wanted to have her returned back to the bottom of the cavern where she belonged. She wasn't as patient as the other interrogators.

"You don't know what a Peacekeeper is. What a Peacekeeper means," Greshyn had to tell her.

"We are born and bred for duty. That is our life! To obey! And I can only serve one master. So torture me or talk to me, I don't care. You'll get nothing from me."

At least Chiana had tried. She really wished she didn't care, but every day more and more like Greshyn would be born somewhere. As she had grown older she had come to realize that there'd one day come a time when she wouldn't be here anymore. What would she leave behind? What would those future generations make of this precious world?

It wouldn't be any fun at all.

**

To Officer Olphin Chatto the time they'd spent marooned on that water planet had been quite the adventure. They survived it with all limbs and minds intact and that's all she really needed to know.

The smuggler Staanz pleaded to her from behind solid cell bars and she merely smiled at this comic pair. All would pass.

While she would have to find a way to cover up the destruction of the first Huntress, as all officers had pledged to keep their mission a secret, Jeska returned to his duties as security officer aboard Dorak Deluge. He informed her of a pleasant surprise. They had a visitor.

"Ssezzin, what are you doing here?" She couldn't believe her eyes. "How long has it been?"

They locked arms like they did in flight school, but it wasn't the same without Greshyn present. Still, two out of three didn't seem bad. They had survived.

Felko had always been the most beautiful of the three, but now she looked drained and old, a far cry from the confident youth Chatto remembered.

"I came with Captain Keedo. He couldn't go anywhere without me. I'm his trustee."

Chatto didn't understand.

"He needs me. It's a pretty simple job, actually."

"He treats you well then, this Captain Keedo?" Chatto had to ask. "Is he the one with all the scars?"

"I knew you'd remember him. I'd better go. If he sees me talking to you he'll never forgive me."

"What?"

From one moment to the next Felko had gone and Chatto had remained behind, flabbergasted.

Jeska walked up to her on the promenade with some bad news, pointing to the man that had just stepped from the airlock: "She wasn't the visitor I was referring to."

Senior Commandant Raydon Fgorek had arrived all the way from the Fjinnap sector to relieve Miklo Braca of command.


	5. Earth

Miklo found the Interion scientist in the safety of the quarters he'd assigned her, mourning the loss of her family in the company of candles. Their flames flickered quietly in the dark, their wax slowly slipped down, like tears across a face. Rygel's throne sled zoomed through the doorway.

"You know why I'm here," Miklo told her and she smiled, even though it seemed sore.

"I'm relieved to see you. Scorpius always spoke so highly of you," Organa said. "Perhaps you're right and it is time to share his secrets."

When her eyes turned to the Hynerian Miklo reassured her: "He's a friend."

He thought he might need Rygel's council before the end.

Two strangers stood before her now in the place of her loved ones. They were all she had left.

"It all started about four weekens ago," Organa started telling. "I was stationed at Graviton Base, in the Taralis sector, one of many secret weapons facilities under Scorpius's command. We'd moved there because of the grudge my former life-partner held against me. He threatened to kill me if I'd stayed any longer, so Scorpius had us reassigned to Graviton Base, where we could be together. The engineers there were sent specifications of certain parts they had been ordered to build for High Command.  
I recognised the design immediately. I would've been ashamed of myself if I hadn't. I designed them cycles earlier in my research into spacial temporal phenomenon. They used my failures. They perfected my calculations and my design and created the weapon without me. I realized this was part of something far bigger and far more dangerous than anyone could have possibly imagined. But Scorpius understood.  
He left me without a word and came back days later with new information and a plan. Together we destroyed all the bases that were constructing parts of the weapon and every copy of the weapon's specifications we could find. All the plans and parts were destroyed save one."

"Dorak Dom," Miklo said and she nodded.

"That's where you came in."

Miklo knew this must've been hard for her, but he had to know. He owed that much to Scorpius to trry and make sense of his death, even if he had put him in an unfortunate position.

His brain mulled over her every word. The Interion scientist was always articulate and kind, a great storyteller, but her emotions slowed her down. He tried to comfort her and say the right words. Rygel kept to himself, so much even that Miklo thought there had been something the Hynerian understood that he had missed.

"Tell us more about the weapon," Rygel asked. "What was its intended use?"

"It's the Nebari," the scientist told them. "They wanted it. No, what am I saying? Vice-Chancellor Grayza offered it to them, as part of an arrangement. Scorpius was furious when he found out. We could not allow it to fall into their hands."

"Is it wormholes?" Miklo asked.

"Not again!" Rygel complained. "I thought they'd learned their lesson by now after Qujaga! The treaty was very clear about the creation of any and all wormhole weapons and technology!"

Organa shook her head.

"No, The concept might be similar in some ways, but it's not about wormholes," she said. "The weapon I designed was hypothetical in nature, it wasn't even a weapon, it was just an experiment.  
I'd theorized a lifetime hoping it would never come to fruition. But the possibilities... to pierce the very fabric of space and time and create a _Center Halo_. Where time and space coalesce. It might've even held the very secrets to the creation of our universe. The primordial ooze out of which our temporal nature itself escaped. I was naive to think the Peacekeepers wouldn't turn it into a weapon first chance they got."

"You were," Rygel said and Miklo knew the Hynerian's disgust was aimed at him.

"You're meddling with forces beyond your control, child," Rygel told her. "Take it from me. Next time you want to mess with time and space: Don't. It'll only cause more trouble. I've travelled through time. I should know!"

"The Nebari were promised a weapon," Miklo said, getting back on point. "What will happen now?"

He shouldn't have asked because he already knew the answer. Grayza's flag ship had rushed to Nebari space two solar days ago at maximum speed. Finally the picture was starting to become clearer.

Miklo was about to leave when Organa stopped him.

"There's one more thing you should know, Commandant."

But before she could tell him the door opened and the light from the corridor lit up the room. A man stepped in with a slight hunch, like someone bearing the weight of the world on his shoulders. For a brief moment they saw his face clearly in the light before he joined them in the dark, then they could only see a silhouettte.

"Where is Commandant Miklo Braca?" he demanded to know, his voice was deeply intimidating so Miklo straightened his back. When Fgorek turned on the lights it hurt their eyes.

The light bounced off his bald scarred skull. He had a round face with a proud square jaw and eyes of a hunter.

"Here," Miklo said. Rygel turned his throne sled to face him, but Organa merely looked away.

"State your business."

The man did not smile. "I am Senior Commandant Raydon Fgorek. I have been reinstated as the Commandant of this base, effective immediately."

He threw a data chip at Miklo's feet.

"You are hereby summoned to report to the Vice-Chancellor when she returns from Nebari space."

"Of course I am," Miklo replied and exchanged a knowing look with Rygel. "I have been expecting this for some time."

"You're lucky I don't have you arrested," Fgorek added. "You are a disgrace. You fired upon another Peacekeeper. You're not worthy of that uniform."

The comment stung. He'd always looked up to Commandant Fgorek. He was a great general. Renowned for his strategies at the Battle of Cuda'Jara. Miklo accepted the insults and the threats. It's the least he deserved.

"Whatever you say," he said. "Anything else I should know?"

"You? From where I'm standing you no longer exist. However, I have news for the Dominar."

Rygel nervously scraped his throat. "Yes?"

"The Nebari have declared war on Hyneria."

***

Greshyn heard it be called 'the cleansing', while others referred to it as 'pest control'. The Nebari propaganda machine had begun the microt the news of the invasion had reached Nebari Prime. The Nebari rebels lamented the trail of destruction their kind left behind throughout Hynerian space. Chiana was worried.

It seemed the war had begun without the Peacekeepers. They had been looking in the wrong place this whole time.

Tollis' patience had run out. The prisoners had become a risk, since they'd seen too much. He ordered them killed. Chiana had other plans. She was the only one to recognise Greshyn's last name and figured they might be able to use this to their advantage.

Rygel was outraged. "They haven't even issued an official declaration of war, but they've already destroyed seven outposts along our border and counting! How are we supposed to defend against that?"

Dorak Deluge's communications centre provided a perfect place to panic. He'd tried to contact his homeworld but they wouldn't let him speak to his grandson, the current Dominar.

"How dare they cut me off!" Rygel raged, while Miklo stood by the Hynerian's side. "This is all your fault!"

"If I hadn't destroyed Dorak Dom you wouldn't even have stood a chance against their weaponry," Miklo replied. He understood it now, but there was nothing he could do.

The Nebari Emisarries tore their way through Hynerian space laying waste to one outpost after another. This wasn't war. This was a massacre. It's like they didn't even intend to conquer. The Nebari came to wipe out every single Hynerian in the sector. Miklo knew this wasn't right. Hynerians might be despicable creatures, but they didn't deserve to die like this.

Fgorek was a fierce man, and Miklo had always thought of him as honourable from reputation, but there was something in the way he had announced the 'war' that had him thinking. He'd only been on the station a microt and he'd already known about a war, even though just a few outposts had been attacked. He knew more than he was letting on. Miklo never thought to see Commandant Fgorek become this: Grayza's pawn. She was behind this. He could tell.

She is the mastermind behind this war.

In Fgorek's wake arrived two stoic investigators who had been given special temporary executive powers to screen all personnel aboard the station, with the authority to access any file and punish any perceived slight. They reported directly to Commandant Fgorek. The last three solar days especially would be put under heavy scrutiny as the Vice-Chancellor sought out any evidence that could connect Miklo to the destruction of Dorak Dom.

He told his officers not to lie to the investigators and to save their own careers. Miklo expected nothing less than a firing squad to await him at his final destination. Grayza had already disposed of Scorpius, so she would definitely not hesitate to get rid of him now she had finally got her chance to get rid of her enemies within the ranks of the Peacekeepers.

He never liked the Disruptors, even though he had once imagined himself as one of them. Theirs was a necessary evil.

The investigation lasted days and in that time Miklo had seen soldier after soldier march into the interrogation rooms and come out drained, with one exception.

Lieutenant Commander Cyl Arden practically beamed when she left the room where the investigators had marked their territory. Miklo knew why. Since Commandant Fgorek's return to the station she never left his side.

"Did you really think no-one would notice?" Rygel said when he'd finished his tantrum and noticed Miklo's plight. "That you could just walk back in here and return to your job, pretending it never happened?"

"I did what had to be done," Miklo replied. "And now I will accept the consequences."

It had been the burden he had carried with him all his life. He bore it well. In defeat and in victory, he would do his duty.

"I would offer you my help, but I know you would decline it," Rygel said.

"Do you?" he asked bemused. He never considered Rygel as a philanthropist.

"You're a survivor, like Scorpius..." Rygel told him.

"Scorpius is dead."

"Yes, but you're still alive."

What kind of chance did they have left? Against the Nebari, against his own kind? What life would await him if he chose to desert his duties, rather than face his death with dignity?

Through the high-paned windows of the communications centre he saw how soldiers escorted Organa, the part-Interion scientist, toward the interrogation chambers. She caught him looking and stopped, before the soldiers pushed her on.

The war wasn't over just yet.

***

"All I want is a simple peace," Mele-on Grayza said and she meant it. "It requires stability. That requires commitment."

She had been waiting here long enough, until everything about Nebari Prime offended her taste.

"A peace through arms, Vice-Chancellor?" the ambassador countered. "That requires power. And control."

"If that is what it takes."

Her vision required sacrifice. The methods of the Nebari may be cruel, but they are effective, she could not argue against that.

"I offered you a humane way of dealing with the Hynerians and you accepted," she spoke. "Our partnership is still in effect."

"We respect your cultivation of our relationship," the ambassador said. He didn't even look at her while he was setting the table. His servants handed him the cutlery and plates. The metal tableware and eating utensils were as white and sharp as the Nebari themselves, while the cloth was plain grey.

"But a partnership implies a certain investment which does not interest our Establishment," he spoke matter of factly. "You have nothing to offer us now that your weapon has been destroyed. Would you like the fish or do you prefer meat?"

Grayza wasn't hungry but settled down into her chair regardless. She dressed for the occasion, wearing a discrete white dress that flowed up into a tight turtleneck. She looked almost innocent.

"Both," she answered.

The Nebari did not believe in needless decoration. Their art was limited to the simplistic abstract or the propaganda of the Establishment, whose mental reminders hung in every house. There was a small orb sticking from the ceiling of the dining room, which Grayza recognised to be a camera recording their every word and movement.

She wasn't a patient woman by nature. She only tolerated the ambassador's presence because she had been promised the Nebari Chancellor and his Prime Vizier would join them for dinner.  
She considered it a personal insult that they had neglected to see her in person these past two days she had spent in orbit around Nebari Prime, but she would make sure that they would come to see to her terms before they had finished dessert.

The ambassador's wife and daughter bowed their heads to the Vice-Chancellor in silence before taking their seats at either side of their beloved, who sat at the head of the table. The seat directly opposite him was reserved for Nebari Chancellor Kadek. Grayza's personal guard watched from the corner of the room, while the servants brought in the first course.

"I see that you have started without me," the Chancellor noted when he arrived and all servants kneeled before him before they were allowed to rise and take his coat.

"Chancellor," the ambassador spoke, visibly delighted at being in his presence. He and his family stood and bowed their heads before the Chancellor who gently nodded in reply and told them to take their seats. "I hope everything has been going well?"

"The Cleansing has begun, ahead of schedule," the Chancellor said as his entourage took form in his wake. Compared to the big, healthy looking round-faced Chancellor the Prime Vizier paled in comparison. He was a thin and slightly shorter Nebari male dressed in black, wearing a grand necklace of shining silver diamonds to match the diamond rings. His eyes seemed to drift in his inspection of the ambassador's household.  
Grayza noted he was slightly more effeminate than any other Nebari she knew as he wore more eyeshadow and used product to make his hair spiky and sharp, but she was told he was a vicious man. A perfectionist who would punish the slightest hesitation in any Nebari's loyal duties. Her Intelligence Officers had done their job well.

The Nebari Chancellor's entourage settled down for the ambassador's banquet, but not before he himself paid homage to Grayza's presence.

"Vice-Chancellor," he told her, as he kissed her hand.

He was a big man with a big smile. She had already seen his face plastered throughout Nebari Prime, but in person he seemed to take up the room with his personality. The kiss was gentle but his grip on her hand had been strong and powerful.

"I am most grateful for your efforts, even though they turned out to be in vain. Your weapon would've saved us a lot of lives in the assault on Hyneria. Alas..."

"It is indeed a shame. If only I hadn't been betrayed. I guarantee you that those responsible *will* be suitably punished."

"Yes," he replied. "But is it not so that, ultimately, those in command are responsible for the actions of their soldiers? Every blemish in the ranks reflects badly upon their leaders. You should've had a tighter grip on the situation. No excuses."

Mele-on smiled imagining the Chancellor's unfortunately gruesome untimely death.

"In exchange for your efforts," he continued. "I have brought you a gift."

A member of his personal entourage bowed her head and rushed to the door upon the very moment the Chancellor clapped his hands to collect Grayza's gift.

She was genuinely surprised, but she regained composure within the blink of an eye, when her daughter walked through that door, alive and unharmed. The Chancellor took pleasure at the sight of this awkward family reunion.

"The rebels that caught her tried to exchange her for one of their imprisoned leaders. Once they showed themselves they were easily captured, one by one. I pity the lost souls that rebel against our beloved Establishment, that hate against our love, and try to take all this away. All they want is to try to tear this family apart and we cannot let them. Their blemish reflects badly upon me."

"You are as wise as you are powerful," Mele-on told him. "I thank you, truly, from the bottom of my heart, and if there is *anything* I can do to repay you."

"No, no, no, no..."

"You need only ask."

"All is done," Kadek spoke. Their debt had been paid. "Let's not ruin this banquet with more politics. I am sure your daughter must be starving. Aren't you, girl? Let's eat."

As he sank into his chair at the head of the table a servant girl poured him a drink. Kadek had one of his entourage move as he invited Greshyn to sit next to him. Again, she made eyecontact with her mother but they never said a word. She knew what had to be done. Her duty.

The Chancellor laughed during dinner and proceeded to compliment the ambassador's wife cooking, but she could not take the credit. They hired a new cook. Kadek insisted on getting his recipe for the splendid sauce and while he spoke he placed a hand on Greshyn's thigh and she said nothing, until an idea came to her.

"What will happen to the rebels?" she asked. Her mother glared at her across the table. "Will they be killed?"

"They will be relocated to a mental cleansing facility," the ambassador answered.

"Wouldn't it be better to make a public example of them?

"We Nebari have no taste for sensationalist violence like Peacekeepers do," the Prime Vizier interjected. "Instead they will be reformed, so they can become perfect citizens of our perfect society."

When dinner was over her mother grabbed her wrist and told her never to speak up in the presence of the Nebari Supreme Leadership ever again.

"I'm glad to see you are well, mother."

**

"Out of everyone," Miklo told Arden. "I didn't expect you to see you here."

She found him preparing for his Marauder for departure on the flight deck, while Officer Chatto made some preliminary checks on the craft. She had been assigned as his pilot.

Chatto saluted Arden before entering the ship.

"Six cycles, sir," Arden said to Miklo. "And you still don't know me."

"That should really change."

Miklo had hoped to avoid any disgruntled soldiers under his command (or any would-be assassins that planned to finish what they had started with Scorpius) and especially those he commanded in the Dorak Dom assault, as he made his way to the flight deck to board his humble Marauder, but apparantly she'd found him. She wasn't lying when she'd told him she was perceptive.

Commandant Fgorek managed to resume his duties aboard the Dorak Deluge station as if the last six cycles had never happened and ordered a complete overhaul, along with a complete restructure of command, to weed out any more traitors from his ranks, even though their only crime had been to do as they were told, and everyone but lieutenant Arden had been subjected to his scrutiny.

"I take it you must be thrilled to have your former commander back," he said to her.

"Yes," she said. "Raydon Fgorek is a great commandant."

Heavy noises started to drown out their conversation when the deck hands started to refuel the Marauder. Miklo beckoned her inside the Marauder and closed the hatch.

"Why are you here, lieutenant?" he asked.

"You've been my superior officer for six cycles."

Miklo smiled. "So you've come to say goodbye? You'd be the first. I can't think of any other that doesn't want me dead."

"It is my duty to serve the highest ranking officer."

"You'll make a great Commandant someday," Miklo told her and then he stopped and wondered.

"Do you think I did the right thing?"

"My opinion is irrelevant, sir."

"Treason is punishable by death. Am I a traitor?"

A shiver crawled up her spine and then finally she looked at him.

"No, sir. You are not a traitor."

Maybe that was all he needed to hear.

***

Commandant Fgorek watched his second-in-command closely as she returned to the command deck. She straightened her back and reported for duty. Her fifteen microt break was over. He knew where she'd been.

"Commandant." A different voice suddenly cleared its throat.

"You're still here," Fgorek said when Rygel hovered into the station's Command Deck.

The Hynerian looked exhausted.

"I thought you'd be long gone by now. Back to Hyneria."

"We're in trouble. Our Hynerian Cruisers are no match for the Nebari Emissaries. At this rate, the war will not take long. I fear there might be no Hyneria to go back to."

"Then why are you here?"

Rygel had been forced to make the most humbling plea of his life. All arrogance had faded from his body in that moment. All pride for his ancestral home had been replaced with fear.

"The Hynerian Empire is formally requesting the aid of their Peacekeeper allies against the Nebari invaders."

Commandant Fgorek turned away from his readings to face the Hynerian and to savour his defeat.

"We don't stand a chance on our own. We need help."

Fgorek did not smile.

"Then why are you here?"

Rygel understood. They had left him no other option.

***

Greshyn was present when Delegate Tarell at last presented his report to the Vice-Chancellor. For days on end he had been interrogated and tortured by the rebels to reveal the information about the Nebari invasion of Hyneria and Greshyn had watched him insist he knew nothing. It's even what he told her. He'd lied. And he was a terrific liar.

But Greshyn didn't understand. Why would the Peacekeepers betray the Hynerians? They were allies.

"Hynerians are a drain on our resources. For cycles they have been demanding the ties between our races to be cut and now we have given them what they've always wanted," her mother explained. "They're no longer a part of our future. They are lower life forms, nothing but a drain on our resources. A chaotic element that needs to be removed from the equation. If I could have, I would have had them erased from history."

"Why would you want to exterminate an entire race?"

"For the greater good," the Vice-Chancellor told her.

Mele-on had hoped she would come to understand and felt disappointed at her daughter's lack of perspective.

"History will remember this day as a day of progress," she told Greshyn. "In the end, we shall know peace."

Greshyn couldn't help but remember a certain Nebari's smile and she wondered what had happened to her.

***

Miklo congratulated Officer Chatto on a job well done. Ten microts after they had succesfully left the station former Hynerian Dominar Rygel the XVIth climbed out of a bag beneath her chair and demanded a drink, much to her surprise.

"There's been a change of plan," Miklo told her. "Can I trust you?"

She was a pilot, not a politician. She'd suspected there had been an ulterior motive behind slipping Felko that note and rushing the Interion scientist on board. She bore no grudge against her former Commandant, but hated to be kept in the dark. And if there was ever anything she couldn't say no to then it was action. While Jeska and Filch never stopped complaining about the three days they'd spent on that desert island in the sun, she thought it had all been worth it just to have experienced those glorious microts of action. The destruction of Dorak Dom had been burned into her eyes and she wanted more.

"Give me a ship and something to shoot at and I'm yours," she said.

"Be careful what you wish for," Rygel said as his marble-like eyes reflected an extraordinary sight.

Hidden at the far side of the grey gas giant there had been a magnificent ship waiting for them. It was distinctly Peacekeeper in design, with a dash of something exotic, it long and elegant and shaped like a hand, sharp and as black as night, and armed to the teeth. It moved like a shadow in the night.

"It's beautiful," Chatto said.

"It's the _Janissary_," Organa told them as she joined them in the cockpit. "Scorpius designed it himself."

His crew had been waiting for his return for days.

"And the weapon?" Rygel asked.

"It holds the prototype within," she answered. "It has the power to lay waste to millions and turn the universe into a lifeless frozen void. Use it with caution and responsibility."

"I object to its very existence. If I had any other choice I would've had it destroyed without hesitating. But I am desperate."

Rygel looked upon it with unease, but Miklo felt the burden of responsibility slip over his shoulders with ease, like a brand new uniform and he liked the way it felt.

"This is our mission," he spoke. "We will do what must be done. Or lose everything."

There was no choice. Only duty.

***

They had been followed. It hadn't taken long before the disappearance of the Interion scientist had been noticed and the whole conspiracy unravelled. Fgorek had his own strike team sent after Miklo's Marauder, knowing he was up to something, but he hadn't expected this.

"Destroy them," Fgorek ordered. He had no mercy for traitors, but his second-in-command objected.

"We don't know what that ship is capable of," Arden said. "We can't destroy it before we've analyzed what that is."

"Traitors don't deserve second chances," the Commandant told her.

The_ Janisarry_ was almost within weapon's range.

"Sir, you are making a mistake!"

"Are you questioning my orders?"

"No..."

"You are defending him, aren't you? Where is your loyalty?"

His officers told them they were detecting a power surge. The ship was powering up its engines.

"They're hailing us, sir."

"These will be their final words," Fgorek told Arden. "You should be ashamed of yourself."

They accepted the transmission from the_ Janissary_.

"Commandant," Miklo Braca spoke. "I do not wish to destroy you. I pose you no threat."

"You're wrong. You pose a threat to all Peacekeepers!"

"Do I? Time was when Peacekeepers were respected throughout the galaxy, known as mercenaries of peace and justice. We fought to defend the innocent and to protect the helpless. Peacekeepers don't betray their allies."

"You don't get to teach me history, boy. I commanded raids and lead armies to victory generations before you were even born."

"And look at what you have been reduced to. Nothing more than Grayza's pawn, and trust me, you could be much worse."

(Rygel swallowed. He couldn't believe Miklo's audacity.)

_"Sir, we'll be in weapons range in thirty microts."_

Fgorek smiled.

"Sir, let them go!" Arden interrupted. "I know what their plan is."

"You do?" Fgorek asked.

"Let the Nebari deal with them. They are not rebels or traitors."

Fgorek lost his cool. He turned to the viewscreen with a vengeance.

"You have poisoned her mind!"

"No..."

Fgorek grabbed Arden's neck and kissed her. When their lips separated he looked into her eyes, a broken promise, before slicing the blade through her aorta. She fell lifeless to the ground, a puppet without its strings, with a look of permanent shock on her pale face.

"OPEN FIRE!" Fgorek yelled. A tear fell down the side of his face.

Suddenly grappling hooks tore through the ship's hull and pulled Fgorek's Huntress off course. The flanking Prowlers pulled up when their back-up had been stolen, giving Miklo plenty of time to power up his weapons and start taking them down one at a time.

Staanz and Cran hugged and rejoiced at having taken the Peacekeepers by surprise, until they realized they were now being targeted. They quickly detached the grappling hooks and proceeded to run like hell from the battlefield, providing an excellent distraction.

The Janissary pierced through their ranks and shot into the opposite direction, unmatched by any Peacekeeper engines, straight into Hynerian space, where they would not follow.

Miklo thanked Staanz in a final transmission before sinking into a dark thought. Lieutenant Arden was dead. One life in exchange for another. He sat down in the captain's chair while stars raced past while he closed his eyes and honoured her memory in silence.

"Thank you," he whispered.

Chatto too, cried for the loss of a good friend. But this was only the beginning. They were racing right into the heart of a war zone. None of them expected to get out alive.


	6. Void

Their excommunication happened overnight. They could never go home again. And Chatto didn't feel like smiling anymore. The consequences of their actions slowly dawned on her as she tossed and turned in her bunk late at night.

Chatto had been brought up to believe in the infallibility of the Peacekeeper state. They were honourable and skillfull and brought order to chaos and fought the good fight, but her illusions were shattered the moment Fgorek slit Arden's throat. And she could still hardly believe it happened. She chose to believe that Arden died in the line of duty. Maybe she would've been better off had she made the first move, but she didn't. Nor should she have.. She couldn't even say she'd given her life. No, her life was taken, just as it had been given to her in the first place.

She punched the steel door of her locker. Her shift was over. For efficiency, she should be sleeping right now (according to the duty roster), but she got tired of writhing underneath her cold bed sheets. She started doing push ups by the floor of her bunk and punched dents into the door of her locker. The pain kept her fresh.

What was she still fighting for? To shoot things? She thought it'd be fun, she thought she could play the tomboy, but this was war. And she was used to war. She was trained for war. Born for it.  
In that and in all things she showed her duty. But this was not her war. She did not sign up for this. Did she? Maybe Jeska had been right all along.

She loved the action, she loved the challenge, she loved life, but even if they managed to somehow miraculously emerge victorious out of this situation and in one piece, what then? The people that were once her home now called her a traitor, a villain, and she dreaded to imagine what her friends thought of her.

In her nightly toils she remembered her parting words to Ssezzin three solar days before. She'd lost count of how many days had passed since she had seen Greshyn. They no longer guarded her flanks. She fixed her gaze on the door suddenly when footfalls passed. She caught her fear in shame. Her sweat grew cold as the space the ship traversed through. She could sense its motion and feel its soothing hum, but all else was mere unsettling, a hush of death.

One. Two. Three. She dropped to the floor to push the ship away from her. Again. Four. Five Six.

The Huntress had felt natural, a Peacekeeper craft, but the controls of Janissary were different and unique, its cold steel penetrated the night in stealth. Its interior walls were as blue as the blood of a Pilot and as hollow as factory pipes, her place was on the bridge and she cared for little else. Well, maybe the mess hall could be fun, but she preferred to control her chaos. She preferred to be at the helm, even if the ship flinched at her touch.

She'd make the Janissary fall in love with her before the end. Especially since it could be her final pleasure. She'd learned, _nay trained_, to make the most of what little she had. If this were to be her final stand she wasn't going to go down without a fight.

Organa didn't like Peacekeepers, she realized, and couldn't help but laugh at her own folly. She'd spent the last twenty cycles of her life among them and only now did she realize what a mess she's made of things.

She guarded the weapon in engineering like her own newborn child. She wouldn't let anyone else near it or even touch it. She'd marked her territory and encrypted all command points so that no-one else could access it but her.

Miklo was distressed the moment he heard this news. He couldn't have her break down and keep the weapon to herself when they needed it most. He marched down to engineering with a security force which he told to keep ready around the corner while he spoke with her.

He needed to know whether he could still trust her.

"I should never have designed this thing," she told him. "I curse the day I dreamt it up and wish I could just pick it up and throw it on to the ground and destroy it. But of course, it's far too intricate for that to happen. Curse my intellect. So many have already died for this thing. Maybe it is cursed. Maybe this is a doomed ship..."

"I didn't take you for a superstitious woman," Miklo noted and this brought a smile to her lips.

"You're right. I'm not. But there's one thing that I know for certain."

He could tell her hands were shaking.

"The dead dwell here. And nothing but death can come of it."

"War is death," Miklo said. "Without this ship billions will die anyway. The Nebari assault is upon us and the Hynerians will be annihilated unless we harness this superior weapon."

"Why?"

"To save them."

"But why? Why do you care about Hynerians?"

"I am in command of this vessel," Miklo told her. "When I order you to activate this weapon you will comply. Do you understand?"

She nodded.

"Yes, I understand how Peacekeepers operate," she said.

He ordered her to share her password with the chief engineer and himself so that in the event of her death the weapon would not be lost to them and she agreed.

Three solar days under extreme conditions had taken its toll on the crew. They were impatient and disgruntled, but the elite men and women of the _Janissary_bore it gracefully under pressure. The decision to head into Hynerian space had been made in the heat of action and Miklo had thrust them into battle without their consent.

But Scorpius had prepared them for this moment since the day he handpicked them from each and every one of his facilities. Pilots, engineers, techs, medics, soldiers, they would all do their duties to the best of their abilities. They valued their oaths more than their own lives and would do whatever it took to keep this ship in one piece.

Commander Stroe Daentz was their spokesman and Braca's new first officer. A solid man of good health and physique, blonde and boastful, he looked taller, younger and superior to Miklo in every way. Then Stroe proceeded to boast of his special relationship with Scorpius and how much he took pride in having been Scorpius's protégé and to have served under him for the past three cycles before he died. Miklo already started missing Arden.

Suddenly the captain's chair didn't feel comfortable anymore. The burden of command, the responsibility of the mission, left him feeling sick and nervous. He had sacrificed everything to continue Scorpius's legacy. Daentz had taken mighty good care of this ship and now he would have to trash it.

The sudden appearance of a Nebari scout ship proved to be an excellent opportunity to do so. Miklo was in a destructive sort of mood today.

"Officer Chatto, reporting for duty, sir."

Upon entering the command deck she found her mark and cleared her throat.

"Olphin, welcome back. Take the helm. Things are about to get interesting."

He felt rattles in his stomach when their target drew closer into weapon's range.

When she had been summoned to her mother's personal quarters she took it upon herself to endure it a little while longer. Greshyn told herself it wouldn't be long now before they would finally leave this wretched place behind and leave Nebari space. She'd grown an unexpected disliking to these people.

Let the universe sort itself out, she thought, and one day she would wake up and the war would be over. However, the moment when she saw Captain Keedo had returned to the station she knew something was wrong. His cumbersome physique towered over her as he guided her towards his master (and the Vice-Chancellor held a tight grip on his leash). Strangely, he seemed pleased with himself. Greshyn didn't dare to ask about Felko. She kept expecting to see her standing somewhere at attention and awaiting orders just like she would in a microt.  
And so she waited. And waited.

When her mother started to serve drinks she knew she was in trouble. She figured one of those pristine china cups to be poisoned, but her mother never offered her any.

"I speak to you now not as your Vice-Chancellor," Mele-on began. "but as your mother."

It was over. This was her death sentence. Keedo had come to swing the blade.

"I regret to be the one to give you this bad news and I'm so sorry for your loss."

"What?"

She was right. Someone had died. Her first instinct was to turn to Keedo and again he smiled at her through sharpened yellow teeth. He was a monster.

"Your friends, Officers Chatto and Felko have betrayed me. Have betrayed us. And they will pay the price."

Greshyn looked up at her mother and worked out her plan. She was testing her loyalty. But she would expect her to ask about their fates.

"Will you kill them?" Greshyn asked and she folded her arms around her back. Without realizing it she bowed her head.

"I already have."

Her heart interrupted her breath.

"Officer Felko is dead and her body will receive no military honours or celebrated burial. Her ashes will be discarded into space as mere waste. That is the only fate that traitors deserve."

"I am not a traitor," Greshyn stated to the air.

"They were your friends!"

"My duty transcends material bonds," Greshyn worded carefully, quoting it from their ancient training materials, as if reading it from the book in her mind she had been forced to memorize from a young age. That and how to dismantle a gun blindfolded in half a microt.

"We fought together. We bled together."

"You conspired together."

"No, I did not! I did not know of their plans."

"Plans?"

"If you really are my mother then I ask you to believe me. I did not betray the Peacekeepers. I know nothing of what they did."

"If you were anyone else I would've had you investigated and court-martialed. The concept of irreversible contamination can still be resurrected."

"No, mother."

"If this is all a lie..."

Greshyn was shaking. Captain Keedo moved closer. It was him, wasn't it? He killed her.

Her mother always remained a perfect calm. Her viciousness came with such ease. It was second nature to her.

"Do you have *any* idea how much I have sacrificed for you? How much I have suffered? I could have been Chancellor. I gave up everything so you could have a life and career. And what is my thanks? What do I receive in return?"

"I'm sorry, mother."

"Let no-one say that I am not merciful," Mele-on finished. "For there is something you can do to repay your debts, to serve your purpose and to fix what they have destroyed. They threaten everything I've spent cycles to build. The fate of the Peacekeepers hangs in the balance. We need the Nebari and so we cannot lose them."

"What would you ask of me?"

Keedo growled.

"To please Chancellor Kadek," her mother concluded. "Whichever way you can."

Fate conspired against her. Of course she had to go back to Nebari Prime. What else did she have left?

The bearded Admiral grinned when the doctor resealed his eyepatch and re-attached it firmly to his flesh. Fgorek had emptied the infirmary per the Admiral's request but there had been no objection. No-one wanted to see the pestering wound on the inside of Admiral Modiran's skull.

Once he had finished Modiran patted the doctor on the back, before clinging to his shoulder in order to shift his weight firmly upon the wooden leg.

"I've lived a life full of adversities," Modiran told Fgorek. "And men like him have been there to pick me up every step of the way. I wouldn't be here without him. Come doctor! Why don't you have a drink with us?"

The doctor seemed to grow pale at the thought of spending time with these gentlemen. He had business to attend to.

"I'm on duty," he said.

"You're still young!" Modiran objected. "Besides, no-one will mind when you have an Admiral's permission. And it is an Admiral that is requesting it of you."

Young? Yes. A fool? No.

Norram too had lived a life filled with violence. Every passing day he'd seen its result on his operating table and even though he liked his reputation as that of a miracle worker, he had to admit he had not saved everyone.

Norram looked to his Commandant to gauge the atmosphere, but Fgorek seemed distracted of late. The traitor's escape had set his teeth on edge. He'd returned to the station without his quarry and he was looking for someone to take out his anger on. The four bodies in his morgue were a testament to this fact.

"Grab a chair, doctor," Modiran said as he guided them both out the door. "Those bodies in your morgue can wait. They won't run. We have much to discuss."

A turn round a crooked corridor lead into a moody mess emptied the bar with their presence. No-one dared to speak up. When Fgorek wanted to get a drink they quickly moved out of his way.

The admiral was in a good mood for a change (he could be vicious when he wanted to be), so the doctor took his chances and settled his chair in between his superior commanders. When he finally did catch Fgorek's eyes it was like he'd read the reports all over again.

"Yes..." Admiral Modiran said. "There'll be more bodies in your morgue before this war is over, I can guarantee you that. Have you taken a look out there yet? It's a massacre. It won't be long before fugitives try to cross our borders and that's where we have to take a stand. Peacekeeperdom has no place for Hynerian immigrants. They wanted to cut off ties with us? Well, they got what they wanted. No traitor will change that."

The unclear liquid sloshed in the glass when he slid it aside. It left a watery round mark on the black woodgrain of the table.

Commandant Raydon Fgorek had returned to the station with the blood of his former lover still sprayed in drops across his uniform. The body was moved in silence to the morgue while the Commandant took out his anger on his underlings and the bottles of Raslak in the bar. He drank alone in his quarters, leaving the men and women under his command to keep an eye on the activity beyond the border.  
That is, until an Admiral in an eyepatch barged on to the command deck with his personal guards. He took great pleasure in scaring the lower ranks and could laugh loudly.

"Admiral..." Fgorek hissed through closed teeth. He wanted him to get to the point already. Modiran started to lean into the centre of the table and whisper.

"I am on official business. Grayza business," he added. Fgorek took a deep breath. The very name set him on edge. "I've ordered a doubling of patrols along the border territories. We should expect them to come under attack almost immediately."

"Don't you think that is a bit premature?" Norram asked. He corrected himself, hoping he wasn't speaking out of line. "Sir?"

"We shouldn't trust those Nebari to know the difference between friend and foe. They'll infect anyone they can get their hands on."

Fgorek was getting impatient. Modiran took pleasure in torturing his friends.

"I know what's on your mind, Commandant," he said to him. "Miklo Braca. That might be a name you recognise. He's officially an outlaw. Excommunicated. But there's more. Peacekeeper High Command has ordered a Retrieval Squad to be sent into Hynerian space to take him out and retrieve his stolen vessel."

"Who commands this mission?" Fgorek needed to know.

"I do," the Admiral said. He finished his drink and ordered another. It didn't look like he was going to move from his seat any time soon. Fgorek was outraged by this neglect of duty, until Modiran explained his reasoning behind this move.

"Keep in mind, that if against all odds this one ship manages to defeat the Nebari, they'll no longer be a threat! And if he loses, they'll destroy him! Either way, we win. So I'm in no hurry to find him. Let him have his blaze of glory. Every Peacekeeper deserves one."

He laughed.

"What is a Peacekeeper without war? It's like a doctor without death! He'd be out of a job!"

The doctor almost spilled his drink as the Admiral patted him on the back again and he smiled blankly. He didn't think to correct him. It wasn't the dead that troubled him. It was the living.

He put the glass to his lips without ever saying a word.

Their stern commander rose from his seat as off the forward bow three Hynerian vessels approached. He ordered the Janissary bank towards a position so that their new guests could dock. The centre vessel gladly accepted their invitation.

Upon finding the Hynerian fleet the Janissary had made a formal request to join the Royal Hynerian Armada and Rygel had gone over to the Imperial Flagship to explain their strategy. It wasn't long before an official investigation was ordered and Rygel stood face to face with his Hynerian nemesis in politics. Senator Hegomy had been put in charge of assessing the Janissary and its crew.

Rygel did not enjoy this, playing host to his mortal enemy, however it pleased him to shed light on the senator's failures.

"Come and reap what you have sowed," Rygel said as he introduced senator Hegomy to the Janissary. "This is what the Peacekeeper have been building right under our very noses. This is what they have been testing on our citizens! A weapon of unimaginable power...!"

"Enough!" Hegomy spoke. "I will be the judge of this weapon of yours."

Wormholes. He scoffed at the notion. There were still many races that didn't believe they existed and refused to believe the Scarran and Peacekeeper intelligence reports of the Battle of Qujaga that ended their short war.

Hegomy didn't even pay the proper respects to Command Miklo as he inspected this craft. He demanded access to all mayor systems and areas but was promptly denied.

"Peacekeepers..." Hegomy said. "We should never have trusted you."

Rygel scoffed, he'd been telling them not to trust them from the beginning!

Hegomy looked down upon the senior staff that had assembled at the docking hatch to welcome him.

"The Empire is attacked on all fronts and faces its most toughest challenge for survival in centuries," he told Rygel. "And you bring a single ship. Your mercenaries are unimpressive."

"We carry a weapon that will change the tide of this war," Miklo said and Hegomy's eyes sharpened.

"The Peacekeepers abandon us in our moment of need while our enemies land on our doorstep, thousands are dying in suicide assaults while the frontlines are receding all the way to Hyneria itself... Defenses practically non-existent against the might of the Nebari Emissaries. It takes a hundred of our ships to take on just one of theirs! And we lack the numbers. We lack the technology. And now you show up with a single ship and you think you can drive them back? You promise us a superweapon! But you're the one that destroyed Dorak Dom to begin with! Why should we trust a traitor?"

Chatto smiled. "Because you need us."

Hegomy's lip curled into a snarl. The ugly truth reared its head. They were desperate.

"Let us try," Miklo told him. "What have you got to lose?"

Hegomy didn't believe them. The proper codes were ultimately provided for their ship, plus Hynerian escort, but it seemed clear to them that the senator would prefer it if their ship were the first to fall in the coming Nebari onslaught.

Hynerian Intelligence reported the movements of a Nebari fleet not too far from their position. It was heading straight for the second Capital. The Royal Hynerian Armada moved to intercept.

"This is it," Miklo told those under his command as he settled back into command. "Stations everyone. Secure the weapon. Prepare secondary power source."

One by one each station reported their readiness. Chatto strapped herself into her chair. Her hands were sweating.

"Navigation, standing by," she reported.

Only one station had still failed to report in.

"Engineering?" Miklo called, but still no answer. "Dr Organa, this is not the time to start this again. I need your support. Can I count on you?"

Silence.

Dr Organa's hand hovered over the console. Her password had entrenched itself firmly into her mind. The giant machines all around her were booming. One turn of the key and this entire place would be flooded with radiation.

Organa entered the code and turned the key. The lads of engineering swiftly escorted her out of the room as the blast doors shut. She closed her eyes dreading what she would find upon opening them. The weapon was primed and ready. A button on Miklo's command chair started glowing red in response. And another at Chatto's console.

"Sir?"

Out the viewscreen space was dark and daunting. Soon it would be filled with the sight of starbound ships exploding. Fighter against fighter. Civilians were already reported to be evacuating the planets the Nebari attacked. They passed many a freighter and transport on their way to the frontline in the wake of the royal fleet.

Chatto thought her Commandant was coping well under the circumstances. For a while she suspected him of having no emotions, but she found she was wrong. He was sensitive and honourable. And he had the sweetest mole in the hollow of his back. When she looked back at him he had only eyes for the viewscreen. For the mission. Just as it should be.

He hadn't let them down yet. Since he had got them this far, she thought it only poignant to stay with him all the way. She would follow him anywhere.

The Nebari fleet entered their sensor range.

"Orders, Commandant?" she asked.

He pondered for a moment in silence as he stared out into the dark. The two fleets bore down on each other in silence, one bigger than the other. The Hynerian fleet was the only thing standing in the way of the Nebari reaching the helpless planet below.

"Put us inbetween both fleets," Miklo said, knowing he would receive the scorn of the Hynerian admirals by breaking rank.

Chatto engaged engines in a short burst and slowly the Janissary drifted to the centre of the battlefield. They finally stood face to face with the Nebari Emissaries in the distance. They counted seventeen battle ships accompanied by more than a hundred fighters. The white metal hides of these one-eyed monstrocities were easily spotted in the black void of space, shining in the light of the nearest star.

"Let them scan us," Miklo said.

Rygel hovered closer to the viewscreen to see better. He took a deep breath knowing it could be his last. The red button on Miklo's chair started blinking.

Organa had rushed to the command deck, her hair as red as fire, and she too started staring out the forward portal. Death was impending.

"Tell the Hynerian fleet to stand back," Miklo said. Organa closed her eyes. She never felt more alone in her life.

The Nebari Emissary directly in front of them fired a warning shot across their bow. The missile exploded not too far away. They shortly felt the shockwave shake the ship. Then silence.

"Do we know what will happen when we activate the weapon?" Chatto asked.

It was Miklo's time to draw breath. It surprised him that his answer did not scare him whatsoever. He smiled in the face of doom even though it terrified him to the bone.

"No," he said. "But let's find out."

He removed the glass encasing with his key until the red button was bare beneath his hand. He could feel the red light pulsing in his palm. Chatto did the same.

"On my mark," Miklo told her and she nodded. The Emissary approached.

"Now."

The button cut into their skins. An alarm resounded across the ship. White mist poured from their engines. Suddenly the ship was shot forward and Chatto had to bank the ship as to not crash into the Nebari fleet. Their sudden advance was perceived as an imminent threat and the Nebari did not hesitate to fire when the Janissary shot across their sensors, cutting open the universe with every length, like scissors cutting paper. It would leave a permanent scar.

The mist spread until it dulled their sensors. The Nebari fleet put on the brakes to stay clear of this strange phenomenon that seemed to spread like an infection or a spider's web in which their fighters got caught. They slowly faded out of being as the mist hardened around them like honey. It grew brighter than the brightest star blinding the universe.

"Hold on!"

The Janissary cut through the Nebari fleet and Chatto spun around them as fighters were in pursuit. Emissaries five times its size aimed their turrets at them as they sped by and the Janissary's soldiers did the same.

"Engines are overheating!" Chatto shouted. She could barely control it anymore. The thrust had her almost spin out of control and get lost in their own trail of destruction. She knew she had to stay clear of it. Her exploits had left a permanent scar in the world, one which history would always remember.

The heat in the engine room grew to critical levels. Engineers started to pass out and succumbed to the effects of the radiation that slipped through the cracks in the wall. The prototype worked but not for long, except it didn't have to. The mist started spreading and spreading with no end in sight and no amount of backpeddling could save the Nebari Emissaries. The Hynerian fleet barely escaped intact. They were lucky to have been further away from the event as it happened.

The Janissary had to get away from the mist at all costs, except for the fact that they were the cause of it. The mist was hot on their trail.

"Turn it off! Disengage the weapon!" Miklo barked as the walls of the Janissary started to heat up.

The last burst of it fled their warped exhausts as their escape velocity reached zero. With all power gone they slowly drifted out of range while the mist spread and hardened, until it started engulfing the nearest planet. The Second Capital was gone, lost in the mists of time, along with the entire Nebari fleet.

Miklo gasped for breath. This was nothing like Crichton's wormhole weapon.

They had torn a hole in the skin of the universe and the fog had frozen everything in place. Time itself stopped and an entire fleet was defeated with a whimper. Organa proceeded to tell them them what would happen to their atoms once the effects of the center halo would take hold. Everything would desintegrate. Doom in complete silence, while the white fog filled the universe. It just wouldn't stop. Even when Organa said the fog would eventually dissipate, he still didn't believe her.

What had they done? The temporal infection covered an entire planet. How many were still there when the attack happened?

Miklo could no longer bear his responsibility with dignity. This was worse than death, because at least death provides an ending, closure, an end to all suffering. But there is no death inside the center halo. They will suffer forever.

It was a poor consolation to know that the war could be won, but at what cost? Scorpius had been right to destroy every copy of this ship's schematics.

Miklo started laughing again at the cosmic irony of things. John Crichton had been right all along.

They took away her shoelaces. The bastards. Now she got boots without laces. What the frell is she going to do with that? It's not like she could tie them, with her hands chained to the wall (although the lock was easily picked).

Chiana had heard of this place all her life but had never actually been inside. The Mental Corrections Department. This is where the resurrections took place. Zombification. This is where the people entered wearing white and left dressed in black. And they were always smiling.

Frell this. She was going to break out. Somehow. She was never going to let them turn her into one of those things, those mindless freaks without feeling, without anger, without sex...

But her padded cell seemed to like it when she kicked it and the door was made of reinforced steel. She was never getting out of here. There was only one way out.

An explosion shook the compound. Chiana wondered who it had been. This death only made it official. There was no hope for escape. This was it. A future of mental cleansing. She remembered the smiles on her parents' faces. She didn't want to turn into that. Into them.

Over time her entire personality would be wiped clean until all that would be left is the empty receptacle waiting to be filled with whatever they wanted her to be. Their perfect citizen.

Frell all that, she said again. She wasn't going to let that happen. Another explosion in the compound somewhere. Another friend that died.

Chiana dug underneath her skin for the secret pouch that had been implanted there. A tiny flap which held the tiniest but deadliest explosive device.

"We're not terrorists," she remembered saying to Gamma as she prepared to take her own life.

Orderlies were already rushing in when they figured out what was going on. They fought and restrained her to keep her from activating it, but there was no need. She'd already let it slip through her fingers.

The explosions burned holes into the facility, the fire consumed from the inside. Through the sedation she could sense the destruction, as she was strapped to a gurney and wheeled into a secure part of building. She could smell the ashes of her friends, dying.

The lights in the ceiling hurt her eyes, so she looked away. Moths to a flame, they all died one by one, but the fire was never a part of her. She feared the flames.

"Sleep, child..." the surgeon told her as they pressed the needle into her flawless skin.

"No, I don't want to sleep. I don't want to sleep! Get away!"

She didn't want to think of the unspeakable things they could do to her before she would wake.

"Sleep and you will dream."

The face with the surgical mask loomed over her until her eyesight blurred. When blindness set in she did dream.

She laughed, because she was a coward. She cried, because she was a coward. Afraid of death. The most common thing in the universe.

Just before her lights went out she turned her neck and saw an eye staring back at her. She recognised it instantly. Gamma tried to shush her and keep her quiet, but she couldn't even feel her lips anymore to form coherent sentences.

"You betrayed us...you sold us out..."

Then he was gone.

TO BE CONTINUED


End file.
